WILS@N 

AND  THE  ISSUES 

BY 

GE0RGE  CREEL 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1916 


-C 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Published,  September,  1916 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    DEMOCRACY'S  TEST 3 

II    MEXICO 10 

III  BELGIUM  AND  THE  LUSITANIA     .     .  34 

IV  " NATIONAL  HONOR"     .....  46 
V    MANUFACTURING  HYSTERIA     ...  57 

VI    THE  NATIONAL  DEFENSE    .     ...     .  72 

VII    THE  CASE  OF  JOSEPHUS  DANIELS     .  88 

VIII    " AMERICA  FIRST"  ......  Ill 

IX    "  ANYTHING  TO  BEAT  WILSON  "    .     .  129 

X    THE  ANCIENT  FAITH                         ,  147 ! 


343108 


WILSON 
AND  THE  ISSUES 


WILSON 
AND  THE  ISSUES 

CHAPTER  I 

DEMOCRACY'S  TEST 

WITH  the  possible  exception  of  1860, 
the  Presidential  campaign  of  1916 
presents  issues  of  larger  importance  and 
more  tremendous  meaning  than  any  other 
in  the  history  of  America.  The  ultimates 
involved  go  far  beyond  the  mere  individual 
victory  or  defeat  of  Woodrow  Wilson  and 
Charles  Evans  Hughes,  for  on  the  deci 
sions  that  must  be  made  depends  the  whole 
future  of  democracy.  It  is  not  simply  a 
President  of  the  United  States  that  the 
people  are  called  upon  to  elect ;  it  is  funda 
mental  policies  for  the  United  States  that 
the  people  are  called  upon  to  declare. 

3 


4  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

There  was  never  a  time  when  the  bigot 
ries  of  partizanship  were  more  akin  to  trea 
son  and  betrayal ;  never  a  time  when  there 
was  such  imperative  demand  upon  the 
electorate  for  clear,  unimpassioned  think 
ing.  Where  tragedy  may  lie  is  in  the  fact 
that  all  the  dynamic  forces  of  the  day  are 
driving  in  the  direction  of  confusion,  prej 
udice,  and  stark  emotionalism.  Not  since 
the  fever  of  the  sixties  has  the  voice  of  the 
people  been  louder  and  less  intelligible. 
At  every  turn,  when  it  seemed  that  some  ex 
pression  of  popular  sentiment  might  come 
clear  and  sane  and  strong,  a  new  excite 
ment  has  arisen  to  restore  babel. 

A  vital  factor  in  the  turmoil,  and  one  that 
calls  for  initial  comprehension,  is  the  pe 
culiar,  yet  definite,  change  in  the  public 
mind  that  took  place  as  a  consequence  of 
the  continuance  of  the  European  War. 
In  the  first  horror  of  it  all,  when  daily  tid 
ings  of  wholesale  slaughter  shocked  Ameri 
cans  into  renewed  appreciation  of  the  bless 
ings  of  peace,  the  sentiment  was  unanimous 
that  the  United  States  " must  keep  out," 


Democracy's  Test  5 

Sensibilities  dulled,  however,  and  as  a 
very  natural  result  of  staled  imaginations, 
the  American  mind  soon  failed  to  react  to 
European  despatches  that  told  of  a  hundred 
thousand  sons  and  fathers  killed,  a  hundred 
thousand  homes  destroyed.  It  was  not 
that  our  emotions  became  calloused  f  simply 
that  our  emotions  became  numbed.  For 
mer  habits  of  life  and  thought,  reasserting 
themselves  inevitably,  restored  the  old 
selfishness  and  all  the  old  prejudices. 

A  certain  unity,  bred  by  common  revul 
sion  against  the  insanity  of  conflict,  be 
gan  to  disintegrate  under  the  influences,  of 
the  partisanship  stirred  by  that  conflict; 
the  silence  of  tragedy  gave  way  to  the  noise 
of  recrimination;  ugly  distrusts  and  sus 
picions  developed;  and  a  vast  irritability 
gained  ground.  In  a  word,  peace  got  on 
the  nerves  of  America. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  the  moral 
courage  of  neutrality  is  colorless  indeed 
when  compared  with  the  physical  courage   / 
of  war;  when  all  the  world  is  at  one  an 
other's  throats,  inactivity  is  bound  to  take 


6  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

on  an  appearance  of  ignobility.  Pro- Al 
lies  began  to  damn  us  as  poltroons  for  not 
adopting  some  aggressive  course  that 
would  cripple  Germany,  and  pro-Germans 
berated  us  as  cravens  for  not  taking  some 
aggressive  course  that  would  harass  Eng 
land  ;  and  between  the  two  attacks  Ameri 
can  pride  was  rubbed  to  the  raw. 

Itjwas  not  war  that  was  desired — even 
the  noisiest  disavowed  such  urgency — and 
yet  the  average  mind  surged  to  a  restless 
ness  compounded  of  wounded  vanity  and 
suppressed  truculence.  President  Wilson, 
unable  to  hit  upon  a  course  of  action  that 
would  afford  all  the  excitement  and  re 
clame  of  war  without  the  bloodshed  and 
desolation  of  war,  naturally  fell  into  dis 
favor.  He  guarded  the  United  States 
against  the  ultimate  crime,  but  failed  to 
find  a  soothing  salve  for  the  egotism  of 
the  United  States. 

Mexican  outrages,  coming  at  this  junc 
ture,  were  as  salt  in  our  wounds.  Ques 
tions  of  right  and  wrong,  consideration  of 
facts,  and  due  regard  for  the  established 


Democracy's  Test  7 

procedure  of  redress — all  were  swept  away 
by  a  rush  of  wild  anger.  Here  at  last  was 
an  open  enemy,  giving  the  chance  to  un 
leash  our  fury  and  to  vindicate  the  cour 
age  of  America.  The  Villa  raids,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  merely  put  a  torch  to  the 
smoldering  rages  that  had  been  piling  high 
as  a  result  of  the  European  situation. 

This  yeasty  ferment,  left  to  itself,  would 
have  bubbled  awhile  and  quieted,  but  it 
so  happened  that  certain  great  groups,  as 
powerful  as  they  were  sinister,  as  cunning 
as  they  were  unscrupulous,  saw  political 
opportunity  in  this  general  impatience,...  ir 
ritability,  and  dissatisfaction.  Exagger 
ating,  exasperating,  magnifying  incidents 
into  events,  and  grievances  into  unbearable 
wrongs,  stirring  every  pool  of  prejudice, 
and  beating  the  gongs  of  alarm,  they  have 
given  the  campaign  the  note  that  is  to 
their  liking. 

National  vanity  is  to  be  a  dominant  issue, 
and  neither  money  nor  political  skill  will 
be  spared  to  prove  that  the  President's  de 
votion  to  peace  has  shamed  us  as  a  nation 


8  Wilson  and  tlie  Issues 

and  heaped  humiliation  upon  every  individ 
ual  head.  The  dead  children  of  the  Lusi- 
tania  will  be  dragged  from  the  ocean  bed, 
and  the  bodies  of  Villa's  victims  loaded 
upon  campaign  carts  for  oratorical  pur 
poses.  Bonfires  of  jingoism  will  be  lighted 
in  every  market-place,  so  that  the  flame  of 
an  unreasoning  emotionalism  may  bury  all 
else  in  shadow.  It  is  the  intent  to  keep  the 
people  so  busy  feeling  that  they  will  have 
no  time  for  thinking. 

Fundamental  issues  will  be  hidden,  bur 
ied  from  sight  by  flubdub.  As  far  as  may 
be  possible,  there  will  be  avoidance  of  all 
industrial,  social,  and  economic  questions, 
entire  emphasis  being  placed  upon  direct 
appeals  to  the  passions  of  human  nature 
that  have  their  roots  in  anger,  prejudice, 
and  hysteria.  If  it  is  in  the  power  of  or 
ganized  cunning  to  compass  it,  every  voter 
will  enter  the  polling-place  with  Belgium 
and  Mexico  so  firmly  fixed  in  mind  that 
there  will  not  be  room  for  a  single  domes 
tic  problem. 

The  whole  situation  constitutes  a  test 


Democracy's  Test  9 

of  democracy.  It  is  the  capacity  of  a 
people  for  self-government  that  is  on  trial. 
It  is  the  honesty,  intelligence,  and  faith  of 
the  mass  that  are  up  for  judgment.  There 
is  not  a  lie  that  has  been  told  that  lacks 
its  answer ;  there  is  not  a  slander  for  which 
refutation  cannot  be  found ;  there  is  not  an 
ugly  charge  that  does  not  come  clean  in  the 
light  of  truth.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  the  people  of  the  United  States 
prefer  facts  to  clamor,  fairness  to  be 
trayal,  and  democracy  to  oligarchy;  in  a 
word,  whether  they  are  able  to  think  for 
themselves. 

r     >  ' 

C-7  *  <-  d 

\ 


CHAPTER  II 

MEXICO 

THE  whole  Mexican  matter,  from  Diaz 
to  Carranza,  is  a  singularly  forceful 
example  of  the  manner  in  which  hysteria 
can  work  f orgetfulness  of  established  facts. 
During  the  Taft  administration  there  was  a 
clamor  for  intervention  even  as  now,  and 
Senator  Stone,  a  Democrat,  took  the  usual 
partizan  advantage  of  an  opportunity  to 
make  political  capital  out  of  a  crisis. 
Speaking  against  the  Stone  resolution  from 
the  floor  of  the  Senate,  Elihu  Boot  laid 
down  this  statement  of  the  administration 
attitude : 

Granting  that  injuries  have  been  done  to 
American  citizens  that  ought  to  be  redressed; 
that  wounds  have  been  inflicted,  that  lives  have 
been  taken,  that  property  has  been  destroyed,  it 
does  not  follow,  sir,  that  we  should  begin  the 
10 


Mexico  11 

process  of  securing  redress  for  those  injuries  by 
a  threat  of  force  on  the  part  of  a  great  and  power 
ful  nation  against  a  smaller  and  weaker  nation. 
That,  sir,  is  to  reverse  the  policy  of  the  United 
States  and  to  take  a  step  backward  in  the  path 
way  of  civilization.  There  is  no  reason  what 
ever,  sir,  to  assume,  if  injuries  have  been  done  of 
the  kind  described,  that  the  government  of 
Mexico  is  unwilling  to  make  due  redress  upon 
having  those  injuries  and  claims  presented  to  her 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  peaceful  negotiations. 
.  .  .  Sympathy  with  the  people  of  Mexico  in 
their  distress,  a  just  sense  of  the  duties  that  we 
owe  to  that  friendly  people,  and  the  duties  that 
we  owe  to  the  peace  of  the  world,  must  forbid  our 
assenting  to  or  yielding  to  any  such  course. 

This  has  been  the  attitude  of  President 
Wilson  from  the  first,  nor  has  he  suffered 
any  of  the  sudden  changes  that  political  am 
bitions  have  worked  in  Mr.  Boot.  Nor 
has  public  misconception  of  this  attitude 
been  due  to  any  of  the  generous  instincts 
aroused  naturally  by  Belgium's  desolation 
or  the  horror  of  the  Lusitania.  Back  of 
the  Mexican^outcry  lie  the  huge  stakes 
gambled  for  by  American  concessionaires, 
and  the  insistence  upon  intervention 


12  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

springs  from  a  desire  to  have  profits  guar 
anteed  far  more  than  from  any  interest  in 

American  lives. 

f 

A  judge  would  be  shamed  for  sitting  in 
a  case  where  one  of  the  litigants  was  his 
secret  client,  ancLyat^Senator  Fall,  even 
while  admitting  his  huge  interests  in  Mex 
ican  concessions,  does  not  scruple  to  de 
mand  the  employment  of  the  army  of  the 
United  States  where  that  would  insure 
their  protection.  Mr.  Hearst,  whose 
papers  have  contributed  more  to  hate  and 
hysteria  than  any  other  agency,  also 
possesses  tremendous  investments  in  Mex 
ico  that  he  seems  to  put  above  American 
principles  and  the  struggle  for  liberty  of 
an  enslaved,  oppressed  people. 

From  the  very  first,  foreign  interference 
has  contributed  as  largely  to  Mexican  dis 
order  as  internal  revolution.  Documen 
tary  evidence  is  coming  to  light  that  proves 
the  Mondragon-Eeyes-Diaz  plot  against 
Madero  to  have  been  hatched  with  the  full 
knowledge  of  Americans;  it  now  stands 
ed  that  Huerta  died  with  German 


Mexico  13 

money  in  his  pockets,  and  as  far  back  as 

V  _     _      ^ ____^— . *~- -^"^ ^*  "*" 

December,  1915,  the  inner  circles  of  Wash 
ington  buzzed  with  the  news  that  it  had 
been  arranged  for  Villa  to  kill  Americans 
on  their  own  soil  in  order  to  force  the 
intervention  that  greed  demanded. 

The  Mexican  issue  is  one  that  deserves 
to  be  understood  clearly,  not  so  much  in 
the  interest  of  Woodrow  Wilson  as  in  the 
larger  interest  of  the  American  people, 
whose  most  sacred  ideals  are  at  stake.  It 
is  not  a  story  to  be  told  in  bold  slashes, 
however,  but  a  painstaking  chronicle  of 
facts.  First  of  all,  there  must  be  com 
prehension  of  the  rule  of  Diaz  the  Magnif 
icent  not  as  a  republic,  but  as  a  despot 
ism  ;  not  as  a  shining  exhibition  of  law  and 
order,  but  as  one  of  the  world's  most  ter 
rible  examples  of  armed  oppression. 

In  a  country  of  fifteen  millions,  ten  thou 
sand  owned  every  inch  of  the  land ;  lack  of 
public  schools  doomed  generation  after  gen 
eration  to  ignorance  and  illiteracy;  the 
toilers  of  the  nation  were  serfs,  compelled 
to  labor  all  their  lives  under  laws  that 


14  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

legitimized  slavery  and  oppression;  and 
from  birth  to  death  the  great  mass  of 
Mexican  people  bowed  under  the  weight  of 
a^vast  hopelessness,  a  paralyzing  despair. 

The  wonderful  natural  resources  of  the 
land — for  Mexico  has  been  called  the 
11  treasure-house  of  the  world" — were  not 
used  for  the  happiness  and  advancement  of 
the  fifteen  millions,  but  became  stakes  to  be 
gambled  for  by  rapacity  and  corruption. 
The  contracts  by  which  the  Pearson  group 
obtained  their  oil  rights  were  of  such  a 
character  that  Lord  Charles  Beresford 
branded  them  as  disgraceful.  Not  satisfied 
with  their  oil  privileges,  the  Cowdray  in 
terests  seized  two  and  half  million  hectares 
of  land,  and  ports,  railways,  and  franchises 
of  every  kind.  Americans,  seeing  the  rich 
!  prizes  to  be  gained,  deserted  the  develop- 
|  ment  of  their  own  country,  and  entered  into 
arrangements  with  Diaz  and  his  corrupt 
/  associates  for  the  seizure  of  oil,  timber, 

lt,  and  mineral  rights. 

Popular  protest  was  impossible.  The 
country  was  divided  into  districts,  and  each 


Mexico  15 

district  was  ruled  by  a  jefe  politico,  respon 
sible  only  to.  the  Federal  Government  and 
with  unlimited  power,  controlling  the  po 
lice,  drawing  recruits  for  the  army,  super 
vising  elections — the  agent,  in  fact,  by 

j  which  a  central  tyranny  was  able  to  work 
\  out  its  plans  in  detail  and  make  them  appli 
cable  to  any  part  of  the  country  without 

f  consideration  of  local  authority  or  public 

\  sentiment. 

A  prophet  came, — a  magician,  if  you 
will, — for  at  the  very  shout  of  " Justice!" 
that  he  raised,  the  Diaz  dynasty,  seemingly 
imjprjjgnable^  Crumbled  and_fell.  Indubi 
tably  it  was  a  dream  that  held  Francisco 
Madero,  for  freedom  and  justice  have  ever 
been  dream  words  far  removed  from  the 
sordid  mathematics  of  " practical  men." 
The  fact  remains,  however,  that  he  was  put 
ting  foundations  under  his  dream  when  out 
of  a  clear  sky  came  a  revolt  that  was  not 
the  revolt  of  the  Mexican  people,  but  a 
murderous  uprising  of  janizaries,  quick 
ened  to  treachery  and  assassination  by 
alien  plotters. 


16  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

There  can  be  small  doubt  that  a  practical 
President  would  have  recognized  Huerta, 
for  it  was  obviously  the  course  dictated  by 
self-interest  as  well  as  by  the  surface  fer 
ment  of  public  opinion.  Backed  by  the  ap 
proval  of  the  United  States,  the  dictator 
could  have  strengthened  himself  in  such 
manner  as  to  restore  a  semblance  of  peace 
and  to  protect  American  concessions,  requi 
sites  that  would  have  permitted  the  Presi 
dent  to  wash  his  hands  in  approved  Pilate 
style. 

Judged  by  every  fact  in  the  case,  Wood- 
row  Wilson's  repudiation  of  Huerta  \?as  in 
no  sense  the  result  of  a  carefully  reasoned 
determination,  but  unmistakably  the  in 
stinctive  recoil  of  the  democratic  spirit. 
Mental  processes  are  never  free  from  the 
impingements  of  self-interest.  It  is  only 
in  the  unthinking  passions  of  idealism  that 
there  is  found  the  courage  to  do  the  right 
thing  rather  than  that  which  is  expedient 
and  opportunistic. 

While  recognition  of  Huerta  was  the 
wise  course,  as  practicality  defines  wisdom, 


Mexico  17 

it  was  not  the  right  course.  The  acknowl 
edgment  that  he  asked  involved  a  sanction 
of  assassination  and  acquiescence  in  the 
legitimacy  of  murder  as  a  substitute  for 
constitutional  procedure. 

The  issue  was  clean-cut  then,  and  it 
stands  clean-cut  to-day.  Not  all  the  an 
gers  and  vexations  of  the  years  can  cloud 
it.  To  have  taken  the  hand  of  the  drunken, 
brutal  assassin,  wet  with  the  blood  of  his 
benefactor,  would  have  announced  to  the 
world  that  America  had  reached  the  point 
where  nothing  but  the  basest  greed  had 
power  to  move  or  determine ;  would  have 
confessed  to  every  citizen  that  self-respect 
was  no  longer  essential. 

Aside  from  the  assertion  of  moral  and 
spiritual  integrity,  however,  the  denial  of 
Huerta  is  now  seen  to  have  had  other  and 
more  material  advantages.  Had  he  been 
recognized  as  despot,  he  would  have  re 
stored  the  tyrannies  of  Diaz  and  continued 
the  slavery  of  the  people,  thus  adding  new 
terrors  to  the  day  of  reckoning  that  was 
bound  to  come.  He  died  in  the  pay  of 


18  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

Germany,  and  as  dictator  he  would  have 
lived  at  the  disposal  of  his  European  pa 
tron,  an  ever-present  menace  to  our  peace. 
^/  Whether  it  is  considered  as  a  challenge 
/  to  sordidness  and  an  affirmation  of  ancient 
\    faith  or  as  an  intelligent  refusal  to  legiti- 
J  mize  a  peril,  President  Wilson's  rejection 
\     of  Huerta  stands  as  a  great  and  splendid 
]    act,   and  those   who   attack  him   on  this 
/    ground    betray    themselves    beyond    ex- 
V_  planation. 

If  further  proof  were  needed  of  Wood- 
jtow    Wilson's    devotion    to    democratic 
/ideals,  it  is  furnished  by  his  attitude  in 
I  those  trying  days  when ' '  watchful  waiting ' ' 
;  provided  laughter  for  cynics  and  an  open 
\  avenue  of  attack  for  jingoes  and  concession- 
/  aires.     With  almost  incredible  hypocrisy, 
intervention  was  urged  "in  the  interests  of 
\  civilization"  by  the  very  class  most  re- 
/  sponsible  for  industrial  strife  in  Colorado, 
/  West  Virginia,  and  Michigan,  for  the  child- 
labor  horror,  for  housing  evils,  and  the 
\>  existence  of  slums. 


Mexico  19 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  skilful 
than  the  fashion  in  which  these  conces 
sionaires,  working  through  a  venal  press 
and  equally  venal  public  men,  identified 
their  threatened  profits  with  "the  nation's 
honor. "  Jingoes  were  aroused,  likewise 
those  whose  only  estimate  of  national 
greatness  lies  in  military  achievement,  also 
the  youth  of  the  country,  with  youth 's  usual 
reckless  passion  for  adventure. 

There  is  every  certainty  that  in  the 
beginning  intervention  would  have  been 
supported  unstintedly  by  the  people. 
Even  as  we  have  seen  the  socialists  of  Eu 
rope,  pledged  to  peace,  swept  away  by  high 
tides  of  racial  feeling,  so  would  every  paci 
fist  protest  in  the  United  States  been 
drowned  out  by  the  boom  of  the  first  Amer 
ican  gun.  War  is  always  glorious  until  the 
lists  of  dead  and  wounded  begin  to  come, 
and  it  must  be  remembered  also  that  for 
years  it  had  been  the  custom  for  public  men 
to  soothe  the  people  with  the  laudanum  of 
brag  and  bluster. 


20  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

The  President's  speech  at  Mobile  came 
as  more  than  any  mere  explanation  of  pol 
icy  ;  it  flamed  forth  as  the  most  illuminating 
exposition  of  the  spirit  of  democracy  since 
Lincoln  bared  his  soul  at  Gettysburg : 

Human  rights,  national  integrity,  and  oppor 
tunity  as  against  material  interests — that  is  the 
issue  we  have  to  face.  .  .  .  This  is  not  America 
because  it  is  rich.  This  is  not  America  because  it 
has  set  up  for  a  great  population  great  oppor 
tunities  for  material  prosperity.  America  is  a 
name  which  sounds  in  the  ears  of  men  every 
where  as  a  synonym  with  individual  oppor 
tunity  because  a  synonym  of  individual  liberty. 
I  would  rather  belong  to  a  poor  nation  that  was 
free  than  to  a  rich  nation  that  had  ceased  to  be 
in  love  with  liberty.  ...  Do  not  think  that  the 
questions  of  the  day  are  mere  questions  of  policy 
and  diplomacy.  They  are  shot  through  with  the 
principles  of  life.  We  dare  not  turn  from  the 
principle  that  morality  and  not  expediency  is  the 
thing  that  must  guide  us,  and  that  we  will  never 
condone  iniquity  because  it  is  most  convenient 
to  do  so. 

Again,  in  his  Indianapolis  speech,  he 
flung  this  challenge  of  democracy  full  in  the 
teeth  of  jingoes  and  concessionaires: 


Mexico  21 

I  hold  it  as  a  fundamental  principle,  and  so 
do  you,  that  every  people  has  the  right  to  deter 
mine  its  own  form  of  government,  and  until  this 
recent  revolution  in  Mexico,  until  the  end  of  the 
Diaz  reign,  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  people  of 
Mexico  never  had  a  look-in  in  determining  who 
should  be  their  governors  or  what  their  govern 
ment  should  be. 

It  is  none  of  my  business,  and  it  is  none  of 
your  business,  how  long  they  take  in  determining 
it.  It  is  none  of  my  business,  and  it  is  none  of 
yours,  how  they  go  about  the  business.  The 
country  is  theirs,  the  government  is  theirs,  and 
the  liberty,  if  they  can  get  it, — and  God  speed 
them  in  getting  it! — is  theirs,  and  so  far  as  my 
influence  goes,  while  I  am  President,  nobody  shall 
interfere  with  it. 

Haven't  the  European  nations  taken  as  long 
as  they  wanted  and  spilled  as  much  blood  as  they 
pleased  in  settling  their  affairs  ?  Shall  we  deny 
that  to  Mexico  because  she  is  weak? 

It  was  at  the  moment  of  extreme  tension 
that  the  Tampico  incident  occurred  to 
harass  and  complicate.  More  than  any 
other  one  thing  this  has  been  seized  upon  by 
the  forces  of  falsehood  and  prejudice,  Mr. 
Eoot  declaring  it  to  have  been  a  carefully 


22  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

planned  move  against  Huerta,  others 
branding  it  as  mad  and  needless,  and  still 
others  reserving  their  mendacity  for  the 
charge  that  American  ships  were  with 
drawn  at  a  time  of  danger,  forcing  Ameri 
can  citizens  to  seek  refuge  under  foreign 
flags.  These  are  the  facts: 

On  April  9,  1914,  the  Huerta  officials  at 
Tampico  arrested  the  whale-boat  crew  of 
the  Dolphin,  and  Admiral  Mayo,  in  addi 
tion  to  the  release  of  the  men,  demanded  a 
salute  to  the  flag  by  way  of  apology.  The 
ultimatum  was  delivered  without  Washing 
ton's  knowledge  or  authorization,  the  Ad 
miral  exercising  his  own  judgment  in  the 
emergency,  just  as  Dewey  did  at  Manila 
Bay.  Instantly  the  whole  question  shifted 
from  one  of  fixed  policy,  and  centered  about 
the  decision  as  to  whether  Admiral  Mayo 
should  be  repudiated  or  upheld.  Whatever 
may  have  been  his  personal  feeling  in  the 
matter,  President  Wilson  did  not  hesitate 
to  throw  the  full  power  of  the  United  States 
in  support  of  the  Admiral's  action. 

Under  Admiral  Mayo  at  Tampico  were 


Mexico  23 

the  Dolphin,  Des  Moines,  Chester,  Connect 
icut,  Minnesota,  San  Francisco,  the  trans 
port  Hancock,  the  hospital-ship  Solace, 
and  the  collier  Cyclops.  Under  Admiral 
Fletcher  at  Vera  Cruz  were  the  battle-ships 
Florida  and  Utah  and  the  transport  Prai 
rie.  As  ranking  officer,  Admiral  Fletcher 
was  in  full  command,  and  never  at  any 
time  did  Admiral  Mayo  communicate 
directly  with  Washington,  reporting 
throughout  to  Fletcher.  To  reinforce  the 
fleets  in  Mexican  waters,  Admiral  Badger, 
with  the  Atlantic  squadron,  was  ordered  on 
April  13  to  sail  from  Hampton  Koads. 

After  the  initial  excitement,  affairs  at 
Tampico  quieted,  and,  on  April  14,  Ad 
miral  Fletcher  advised  Washington  as 
follows:  " Rebels  abandoned  attack  on 
Tampico  and  withdrew.  The  six  hundred 
refugees  on  board  ships  there  have  been 
returned  to  their  homes,  business  is  re 
sumed,  and  conditions  there  again  appear 
normal."  On  April  15  he  reported, 
" Slight  skirmishes  in  outer  trenches";  on 
April  16  he  did  not  communicate ;  on  April 


24  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

17  he  declared,  "All  quiet";  on  April  18, 
"Condition  unchanged";  and  on  April  19, 
"No  new  developments  at  Tampico." 

In  the  meantime  Washington  was  press 
ing  for  the  apology  that  Huerta  evaded. 
A  possible  reason  for  his  delay  was  the  ex 
pected  arrival  at  Vera  Cruz  of  the  German 
steamer  Ypiranga,  bearing  a  great  cargo  of 
arms  and  ammunition.  To  punish  Huerta 
for  his  continued  defiance  of  the  Mayo  ulti 
matum,  Washington  decided  to  seize  the 
custom-house,  and  if  the  delivery  of  the 
Ypiranga's  cargo  was  to  be  prevented,  the 
seizure  had  to  be  made  before  the  steamer's 
arrival.  As  a  consequence,  the  order  went 
to  Admiral  Fletcher  on  April  20. 

Vera  Cruz  was  now  the  center  of  opera 
tions.  Guided  by  this,  Secretary  Daniels' 
military  advisers  suggested  that  he  order 
Mayo  to  Vera  Cruz  with  all  his  ships  except 
the  Des  Moines.  The  reason  was  that  Ad 
miral  Fletcher's  battle-ships  were  com 
pelled  to  lie  five  miles  out  at  sea,  while 
Mayo's  light-draft  vessels  would  be  able 
to  enter  the  harbor.  Not  only  did  daily 


Mexico  25 

reports  show  that  conditions  were  normal 
at  Tampico,  but  Admiral  Badger,  with  the 
Atlantic  squadron,  was  only  a  few  hours 
away  from  that  port. 

In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  conditions 
changed.  Almost  in  the  moment  that  Mayo 
was  reading  his  order  to  proceed  to  Vera 
Cruz,  Tampico  experienced  a  new  outbreak 
that  menaced  life  and  property.  Natu 
rally  enough,  Admiral  Mayo  sent  a  wireless 
message  to  Admiral  Fletcher,  telling  him 
of  the  explosion,  and  suggesting  that  he  be 
allowed  to  remain.  With  equal  common 
sense,  Admiral  Fletcher  applied  his  own 
decisions  to  the  emergency.  Getting  into 
communication  with  Admiral  Badger,  then 
at  a  point  equidistant  from  both  Tampico 
and  Vera  Cruz,  he  asked  that  the  Atlantic 
squadron  change  its  destination  and  come 
to  Vera  Cruz.  This  request  approved,  he 
gave  orders  to  Mayo  to  send  him  the  San 
Francisco  and  the  Chester  at  full  speed, 
but  to  remain  at  Tampico  with  the  rest  of 
his  ships. 

As  the  naval  experts  had  foreseen,  these 


26  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

light-draft  vessels  from  Mayo's  fleet  made 
possible  the  quick  and  decisive  occupation 
of  Vera  Cruz,  entering  the  harbor  to  pro 
tect  the  landing-parties,  and  shelling  the 
buildings  that  held  snipers.  From  Badg 
er's  battle-ships  poured  the  marines  that 
gave  Fletcher  his  necessary  land  strength. 
While  these  things  were  happening  at 
Vera  Cruz,  Admiral  Mayo,  lying  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Panuco  Eiver,  six  miles 
from  Tampico,  was  considering  the  prob 
lem  of  saving  human  life.  Had  Amer 
icans  been  concentrated  in  Tampico, 
his  task  would  have  been  simple,  but* 
there  were  many  foreigners  of  various 
nationalities  scattered  throughout  the 
entire  oil-region,  far  removed  from  the 
protection  of  Mayo's  guns.  The  captains 
of  the  English  and  German  warships  made 
formal  representation  of  the  danger  to 
which  these  people  would  be  exposed  should 
Mayo  appear  before  Tampico  with  his 
squadron,  and  asked  that  they  be  allowed  to 
gather  the  refugees  slowly  and  quietly  and 
deliver  them  to  the  American  ships. 


Mexico  27 

Impressed  by  the  wisdom  of  the  sugges 
tion,  Admiral  Mayo  again  sent  the  follow 
ing  message  to  Admiral  Fletcher: 

Arranged  as  last  resort  to  go  in  this  morning 
to  bring  out  Americans.  Felt  almost  sure  such 
action  would  precipitate  hostilities.  British 
captain  whom  I  informed  of  my  purpose  re 
quested  me  for  the  sake  of  all  foreigners  not  to 
come  in,  but  that  he  would  send  Americans  out, 
to  which  I  agreed. 

Hostilities  were  averted,  likewise  a  pos 
sible  massacre,  no  property  was  destroyed, 
and  not  a  single  life  was  lost.  Vera  Cruz, 
occupied,  worked  the  downfall  of  Huerta; 
the  rise  of  a  new  order  permitted  evacua 
tion  and  the  resumption  of  the  policy  of 
non-interference.  A  plain,  straight-run 
ning  record,  rendered  ugly  and  confused 
only  by  suppression  and  distortion. 

The  Wilson  policy  with  regard  to  the 
protection  of  American  life  and  property 
in  Mexico  has  been  stated  succinctly  and  re 
peatedly.  Property  loss  will  be  expressed 
in  damages  and  collected  in  the  course  of 
recognized  procedure,  but  the  safety  of 


28  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

citizens  cannot  be  guaranteed  against  the 
lawlessness  of  guerilla  bands  eager  to  em 
barrass  the  established  Government  by  acts 
of  violence.  Safe  escort  has  been  offered 
repeatedly,  and  those  Americans  who  re 
main  in  Mexico  do  so  of  their  own  will  and 
despite  warning. 

At  the  very  moment  when  Republican 
clamor  was  greatest  against  President 
Wilson  because  of  his  refusal  to  send  in  an 
army  for  the  protection  of  those  who  per 
sisted  in  subjecting  themselves  to  risk,  the 
Republican  party  was  recording  itself  in 
favor  of  the  proposition  that  Americans 
had  no  rights  on  the  high  seas  that  Ger 
many  was  bound  to  respect.  Of  the  four 
teen  votes  in  the  Senate  in  favor  of  the 
resolution  warning  Americans  off  of  Eng 
lish  ships,  twelve  were  cast  by  Republicans, 
while  of  the  one  hundred  and  forty-two 
votes  in  the  House,  one  hundred  and  two 
were  those  of  Republicans. 

The  Villa  raid  across  the  border,  like  the 
Tampico  incident,  was  another  of  those 
emergencies  that  defy  fixed  policies,  yet 


Mexico  29 

even  under  its  strain  President  Wilson  re 
mained  steadfast,  insisting  that  pursuit 
must  not  be  regarded  as  other  than  a  puni 
tive  expedition,  carrying  no  purpose  incon 
sistent  with  the  integrity  and  independence 
of  Mexico.  And  yet  again,  as  in  every 
other  crisis,  he  was  compelled  to  labor 
against  all  the  forces  of  hatred  and  treason. 
With  the  punitive  expedition  far  into  Mex 
ico,  every  peon  aflame  with  suspicion  and 
distrust,  and  Carranza  balancing  between 
his  pledged  word  to  the  United  States  and 
the  anger  of  his  own  people,  both  Republi 
can  and  Progressive  conventions  in  Chicago 
wrote  platforms  that  breathed  war  and 
conquest  in  every  line.  Giving  edge  to  the 
furious  alarm  thus  bred  in  the  Mexican 
heart  was  the  contempt  for  the  United 
States  that  had  been  inspired  by  the 
unscrupulous  and  the  venal,  with  their  re 
peated  declarations  that  the  American  peo 
ple  were  poltroons,  that  Wilson  was  a  cow 
ard,  and  that  the  United  States  could  not 
whip  any  nation  but  Haiti.  Is  it  any  won 
der  that  there  was  a  Carrizal? 


30  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

Always  the  sordid,  vicious  or  reckless; 
never  the  sane,  the  democratic,  and  the  pa 
triotic.  A  principal  source  of  President 
Wilson's  difficulties  is  thus  traced  by 
Mr.  J.  W.  Slaughter,  writing  in  "The 
Public  ": 

It  was  also  possible  during  the  period  of  wait 
ing  to  test  the  quality  of  the  newspaper  represen 
tatives  whose  work  was  to  guide  the  public 
opinion  of  a  great  nation  with  reference  to  a 
weaker  neighbor.  One  always  expects  that 
eagerness  for  news  will  lead  to  an  irresponsible 
grasping  of  rumors,  but  one  was  hoping  that 
there  would  be  some  ability  to  interpret  events,  to 
see  under  the  waves  to  the  ground  swell  and  cur 
rent,  to  grasp  the  significant  even  if  they  were 
compelled  to  report  the  trivial.  Nearly  all  the 
writing  done  to  shape  American  opinion  within 
the  period  of  my  intimate  acquaintance  with 
Mexican  affairs  came  from  boys  with  no  more 
political  insight  than  is  usually  found  on  a  col 
lege  campus,  acting  under  definite  orders  as  to 
what  they  should  see  and  report. 

,  Mr.  James  Hopper,  in  an  able  article  in 
"Collier's,"  backs  up  Mr.  Slaughter's  ob 
servation  : 


Mexico  31 

Of  those  who  have  no  interests  in  Mexico, 
though,  there  is  another  kind — and  I  think  they 
form  the  majority.  They  are  those  who  not  only 
own  nothing  in  Mexico,  but  very  little  in  the 
United  States.  These  are  in  favor  of  a  scrap — 
any  kind  of  a  scrap.  They  'd  like  to  see  the 
United  States  invade  Mexico  just  as  they  like  to 
see  a  Johnson  fight  a  Jeffries,  or  anybody  fight 
anybody,  or  any  dog  any  other  dog:  just  to  see 
the  fight  or  read  about  it.  To  that  category  be 
long  most  of  the  newspaper  men  who  write  from 
El  Paso.  And  me,  too,  when  I  am  feeling  good. 

Out  of  the  babel  the  voice  of  Woodrow 
Wilson  is  the  one  voice  that  has  come  clear 
and  strong ;  his  declarations  alone  bear  any 
relation  to  the  governing  principles  of 
American  life.  To  the  professional  paci 
fists  he  has  returned  the  answer  that  the 
United  States  cannot  and  will  not  tolerate 
hostile  incursions  without  the  most  posi 
tive  and  drastic  reprisals,  and  that  if  the 
Carranza  Government,  either  from  weak 
ness  or  unwillingness,  is  unable  to  prevent 
such  incursions,  the  troops  of  the  United 
States  will  be  called  upon  to  take  up  the 
task. 


32  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

To  the  interventionists  he  has  declared 
that  the  operations  of  United  States  troops 
in  Mexico  will  be  confined  to  a  punitive  and 
defensive  character,  and  that  even  if  war 
is  brought  about  as  a  result  of  Carranza's 
inability  or  refusal  to  understand  the  sin 
cere  disinterestedness  of  America,  the  war 
will  be  waged  without  a  single  thought  of 
conquest  or  acquisition  of  territory. 

Just  as  Mexico  has  been  the  test  of 
Woodrow  Wilson,  so  is  it  the  test  of  the 
American  people.  From  first  to  last  the 
President  has  affirmed  his  belief  in  democ 
racy  not  alone  for  the  United  States,  but 
for  all  other  nations  harboring  the  aspira 
tion.  He  stands  on  the  conviction  that  a 
country  has  the  right  to  live  its  independent 
life;  he  has  not  failed  to  remember  that 
America  came  to  self-government  through 
years  of  blood  and  revolution ;  as  far  as  lies 
in  his  power  he  has  stood  firm  against  the 
"strong-man"  theory  by  which  the  forces 
of  reaction  are  trying  to  restore  dictator 
ship  in  Mexico. 

It  is  for  the  people  of  the  United  States 


Mexico  33 

to  decide  whether  Woodrow  Wilson  is  to 
be  supported  in  his  simple,  unswerving 
support  of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
democracy,  or  whether  the  faith  of  Wash 
ington,  of  Jefferson,  and  of  Lincoln  is  to 
be  scrapped  in  favor  of  selfishness  and 
greed. 


CHAPTER  III 

BELGIUM   AND  THE  LUSITASTIA 

IT  is  not  alone  the  democracy  of  the 
American  people  that  is  up  for  test,  but 
the  common  honesty.  Nothing  is  more 
natural  than  that  the  United  States  should 
be  "  despised "  by  combatants  who  seek  our 
aid  and  are  angered  by  our  neutrality,  but 
if  a  campaign  of  hysteria  is  permitted  to 
destroy  Woodrow  Wilson,  it  is  a  surrender 
of  self-respect  that  will  prove  all  con 
tempt  to  have  been  deserved. 

The  whole  matter  of  Belgium,  for  in 
stance,  is  illustrative  of  the  attempt  to  have 
hypocrisy  adopted  as  the  governing  prin 
ciple  of  American  life.  Not  at  the  time  of 
the  German  invasion,  or  for  months  after 
ward,  was  the  question  of  a  protest  by  the 
United  States  even  suggested  in  Congress 
or  in  the  press.*  Not  only  was  there  no 

34 


Belgium  and  the  Lusitania        35 

treaty  that  bound  America  to  take  action, 
but  it  was  not  even  claimed  that  such  treaty 
existed.  It  was  months  before  the  full 
meaning  of  the  German  invasion,  the  full 
horror  of  it,  burned  into  the  consciousness 
of  the  American  people. 

Speaking  on  February  16,  1916,  Elihu 
Root,  then  a  full-fledged  Presidential  can 
didate,  asserted  that  "The  American  peo 
ple  were  entitled  not  merely  to  feel,  but 
to  speak  concerning  the  wrong  done  to 
Belgium.  The  law  protecting  Belgium 
which  was  violated  was  our  law  and  the  law 
of  every  other  civilized  nation. ' ' 

Better  than  any  one  else  Elihu  Eoot  knew 
that  the  United  States  was  bound  by  nei 
ther  law  nor  treaty.  The  Hague  Declara 
tion  that  the  "territory  of  neutral  powers 
is  inviolable "  contained  no  means  of  en 
forcement,  and  as  far  as  the  present  war 
is  concerned,  nullified  itself  entirely  by 
Article  20 :  "  The  provisions  of  the  present 
Convention  do  not  apply  except  as  between 
contracting  parties,  and  then  only  if  all  the 
belligerents  are  parties  to  the  Convention/' 


36  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

Neither  Great  Britain  nor  Servia  ever  rati 
fied  the  convention. 

Mr.  Eoosevelt  was  President  at  the  time, 
and  Mr.  Eoot  his  secretary  of  state,  and  if 
the  following  clause  was  not  inserted  at 
their  specific  request,  at  least  they  gave  it 
their  indorsement:  "Nothing  contained  in 
this  Convention  shall  be  so  construed  as  to 
require  the  United  States  of  America  to 
depart  from  its  traditional  policy  of  not 
'intruding  upon,  interfering  with,  or  en 
tangling  itself  in  the  political  questions  of 
policy  ...  of  any  foreign  state." 

A  protest  under  this  instrument  was  not 
even  dreamed,  much  less  urged.  Mr. 
Lodge  and  Mr.  Eoot  and  Mr.  Eoosevelt, 
now  most  shocked  by  President  Wilson's 
"poltroonery,"  were  then  without  concep 
tion  of  Belgium's  value  as  a  campaign 
issue.  Not  once  in  the  year  that  followed 
the  German  occupation  did  a  single  Eepub- 
lican  leader  in  or  out  of  Congress  make  de 
mand  upon  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  for  official  protest.  Mr.  Eoot  was 
in  the  Senate  for  one  year  and  six  months 


Belgium  and  the  Lusitania        37 

after  the  invasion  of  Belgium,  but  it  was 
not  until  February  16,  1916,  that  he  ever 
opened  his  mouth  to  voice  indignation. 

As  for  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who  devoted  the 
latter  part  of  1915  and  the  first  six  months 
of  1916  to  attacking  President  Wilson  for 
his  failure  to  protest  in  the  matter  of  Bel 
gium,  the  following  article  from  his  pen 
appeared  in  "The  Outlook"  under  date  of 
September  23,  1914 : 

A  deputation  of  Belgians  has  arrived  in  this 
country  to  invoke  our  assistance  in  the  time  of 
their  dreadful  need.  What  action  our  Govern 
ment  can  or  will  take  I  know  not.  It  has  been 
announced  that  no  action  can  be  taken  that  will 
interfere  with  our  entire  neutrality.  It  is  cer 
tainly  eminently  desirable  that  we  should  re 
main  entirely  neutral,  and  nothing  but  urgent 
need  would  warrant  breaking  our  neutrality  and 
taking  sides  one  way  or  the  other.  Our  first  duty 
is  to  hold  ourselves  ready  to  do  whatever  the 
changing  circumstances  demand  in  order  to  pro 
tect  our  own  interests  in  the  present  and  in  the 
future;  although,  for  my  own  part,  I  desire  to 
add  to  this  statement  the  proviso  that  under  no 
circumstances  must  we  do  anything  dishonorable, 
especially  towards  unoffending  weaker  nations. 


38  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

Neutrality  may  be  of  prime  necessity  in  order  to 
preserve  our  own  interests,  to  maintain  peace  in 
so  much  of  the  world  as  is  not  affected  by  the 
war,  and  to  conserve  our  influence  for  helping 
toward  the  reestablishment  of  general  peace 
when  the  time  comes ;  for  if  any  outside  Power  is 
able  at  such  time  to  be  the  medium  for  bringing 
peace,  it  is  more  likely  to  be  the  United  States 
than  any  other.  But  we  pay  the  penalty  of  this 
action  on  behalf  of  peace  for  ourselves,  and  pos 
sibly  for  others  in  the  future,  by  forfeiting  our 
right  to  do  anything  on  behalf  of  peace  for  the 
Belgians  in  the  present.  We  can  maintain  our 
neutrality  only  by  refusal  to  do  anything  to  aid 
unoffending  weak  Powers  which  are  dragged  into 
the  gulf  of  bloodshed  and  misery  through  no 
fault  of  their  own.  Of  course  it  would  ~be  folly 
to  jump  into  the  gulf  ourselves  to  no  good  pur 
pose;  and  very  probably  nothing  that  we  could 
have  done  would  have  helped  Belgium.  We  have 
not  the  smallest  responsibility  for  what  has  be 
fallen  her,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  sympathy  of 
this  country  for  the  suffering  of  the  men,  women, 
and  children  of  Belgium  is  very  real.  Never 
theless,  this  sympathy  is  compatible  with  full 
acknowledgment  of  the  unwisdom  of  OUT  uttering 
a  single  word  of  official  protest  unless  we  are  pre 
pared  to  make  that  protest  effective;  and  only 
the  clearest  and  most  urgent  National  duty  would 


Belgium  and  the  Lusitania        39 

ever  justify  us  in  deviating  from  our  rule  of  neu- , 
trality  and  non-interference.    But  it  is  a  grim  V 
comment  on  the  professional  pacificist  theories  as 
hitherto  developed  that  our  duty  to  preserve 
peace  for  ourselves  may  necessarily  mean  the 
abandonment  of  all  effective  effort  to  secure  peace 
for  other  unoffending  nations  which  through  no 
fault  of  their  own  are  dragged  into  the  war. 

In  the  light  of  the  developments  of  two 
years,  it  is  easy  to  say  what  should  or 
should  not  have  been  done,  but  the  grim 
fact  remains  that  throughout  the  year  fol 
lowing  the  Belgian  invasion  neither  in  Con 
gress  nor  out  was  there  the  slightest  de 
mand  for  the  official  championship  of  the 
Belgian  cause  by  the  United  States. 

The  role  of  world  policeman  is  a  pleasing 
one  to  national  conceit,  and  many  a  Presi 
dent  other  than  Mr.  Wilson  has  been  called 
upon  to  suffer  for  upholding  the  traditional 
policy  of  the  United  States  with  regard  to 
entangling  alliances.  Washington  himself 
was  attacked  furiously  because  lie  held  to 
neutrality  during  the  war  between  England 
and  France,  and  Mr.  Eoosevelt  did  not  es- 


40  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

cape  bitter  censure  when  he  refused  to  pro 
test  against  the  Kongo  atrocities,  the  mur 
der  of  Armenians,  the  Kishinef  massacres, 
and  against  Japan's  bold  violation  of 
America's  treaty  with  Korea. 

The  Lusitania  clamor  is  no  less  the  result 
of  misunderstanding  exaggerated  by  the 
Pharisaism  of  politicians.  Mr.  Hughes, 
taking  quick  cue  from  Mr.  Roosevelt,  made 
this  declaration  before  his  judicial  robe  had 
slipped  from  his  shoulders  to  the  floor : 

The  most  serious  difficulties  the  present  admin 
istration  has  encountered  have  been  due  to  its 
own  weakness  and  incertitude.  I  am  profoundly 
convinced  that  by  prompt  and  decisive  action, 
which  existing  conditions  manifestly  called  for, 
the  Lusitania  tragedy  would  have  been  prevented. 

There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  certain  uncon 
scious  human  habit  of  substituting  hind 
sight  for  foresight,  but  not  even  the  utmost 
stretch  of  charitable  interpretation  can 
save  Mr.  Hughes  from  the  suspicion  of  pre 
suming  deliberately  upon  popular  forget- 
fulness.  The  German  warning  appeared 
in  the  press  on  the  very  morning  that  the 


Belgium  and  the  Lusitania        41 

Lusitania  sailed.  It  came  as  one  of  those 
things  that  civilization  has  made  incredible. 
Such  people  as  noticed  the  warning  laughed 
at  it,  and  not  even  the  passengers  on  the 
doomed  boat  attached  the  slightest  im 
portance  to  it.  It  was  not  possible  for  the 
twentieth  century  mind  to  adjust  itself  sud 
denly  to  the  mental  processes  of  savagery, 
and  had  Mr.  Hughes  been  President,  the 
Tirpitz  barbarism  would  have  shocked  him 
with  its  horrid  surprise  just  as  it  shocked 
Mr.  Wilson. 

Another  idea  more  or  less  fixed  in  the 
average  mind  as  the  result  of  falsehood  and 
malice  is  that  President  Wilson,  while  not 
necessarily  declaring  war  on  Germany, 
should  at  least  have  expressed  the  coun 
try's  indignation  by  breaking  off  diplo 
matic  relations.  Yet  had  he  adopted  this 
course  he  would  have  played  into  the  hands 
of  Germany  as  completely  as  could  have 
been  desired  by  the  most  enthusiastic  "  hy 
phen." 

What  would  have  happened  had  Bern- 
storff  been  given  his  papers?  For  the 


42  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

pleasure  of  a  moment's  bumptiousness, 
Belgium  and  Poland  would  have  gone  un 
fed,  and  Turkish  cruelty  would  have  been 
given  free  hand  in  Armenia ;  international 
law  would  have  been  left  without  a  voice, 
and  the  rights  of  neutral  nations,  the  obli 
gations  of  humanity,  lost  to  sight  in  an  un 
checked  rage  of  " reprisals/'  All  to  what 
end?  What  would  have  been  gained  that 
has  not  been  gained? 

Because  diplomatic  relations  were  not 
broken  off,  the  United  States  has  been  per 
mitted  by  Germany  to  feed  the  starving 
millions  of  Poland  and  Belgium,  and  the 
activities  of  Ambassador  Morgenthau  in 
behalf  of  butchery-threatened  Armenians 
were  not  stayed.  By  virtue  of  steady, 
unyielding  pressure,  made  possible  only 
by  diplomatic  relations,  Germany  and 
England  alike  have  been  compelled  to 
pay  a  continued  regard  to  international 
law,  and  concession  after  concession  has 
been  secured  by  President  Wilson  that 
could  not  have  been  won  by  war. 

An  even  larger  aspect  of  the  matter  is 


Belgium  and  the  Lusitania        43 

presented  by  the  following  editorial, 
printed  in  "The  New  Bepublic"  at  the 
time: 

Whether  or  not  President  Wilson  intends  to 
break  off  diplomatic  relations  with.  Germany  in 
case  he  fails  to  receive  satisfaction  for  his  de 
mands  we  cannot  yet  know ;  but  the  consequences 
of  such  a  measure  of  retaliation  should  be  recog 
nized.  Not  only  would  it  result  in  the  continua 
tion  of  an  unregulated  submarine  campaign,  ad 
ditional  loss  of  life  by  American  citizens,  and  a 
probably  irresistible  subsequent  demand  for  war, 
but  it  would  prevent  the  United  States  from 
negotiating  with  more  than  one  of  the  major 
belligerents.  The  ability  to  negotiate  with  all  of 
them  may  in  the  future  be  a  matter  of  the  ut 
most  importance.  This  war  will  never  be 
stopped  unless  at  some  particular  juncture  a 
certain  number  of  men  representing  the  several 
fighting  nations  can  be  brought  together  to  dis 
cuss  possible  terms  of  peace.  The  United  States 
is  likely  to  be  the  most  available  agency  for  ar 
ranging  such  a  conference.  It  may  be  the  only 
Power  which  will  be  free  to  open  informal  nego 
tiations  for  a  conference.  But  if  it  breaks  off 
diplomatic  relations  with  Germany  it  will  be  un 
able  to  make  any  move,  no  matter  how  tentative 
and  informal,  in  the  direction  of  peace ;  it  will  be 


44  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

involved  by  the  war  even  if  it  is  not  involved  in 
the  war;  and  its  subsequent  freedom  of  move 
ment  and  international  usefulness  will  be  very 
much  restricted. 

As  for  "protests  in  the  name  of  human 
ity,  "  a  phrase  increasingly  dear  to  the  un 
thinking  as  well  as  the  subtle,  what  higher 
ground  could  have  been  taken  than  the 
Wilson  notes  with  regard  to  the  Lusi- 
tania  and  the  Ancona?  The  annals  of  in 
ternational  correspondence  contain  no  such 
scathing  arraignment  of  one  world  power 
by  another,  and  every  word  was  more  effec 
tive  than  a  gunshot  in  expressing  Amer 
ica's  horror  and  detestation.  To  all  such 
sympathizers,  there  is  but  a  single  an 
swer.  If  diplomacy,  with  its  victories, 
is  to  be  given  over  in  favor  of  the  harsh 
uncertainties  of  war,  it  is  not  one  na 
tion  that  must  be  fought,  but  all.  Eng 
land  has  violated  rule  after  rule  in  the  mat 
ter  of  contraband,  Germany  has  heaped  of 
fense  upon  offense,  the  Allies  marched 
across  Greece  even  as  Germany  marched 
across  Belgium,  though  with  no  such 


Belgium  and  the  Lusitania        45 

ghastly  result,  and  Japan  has  disregarded 
justice  in  her  treatment  of  China.  Inter 
national  law  has  broken  down  at  every 
point,  and  the  world's  one  hope  of  salvage 
lies  in  the  persistence  of  American  stand 
ards. 


CHAPTER  IV 

"NATIONAL  HONOR " 

THE  amazing  thing  is  not  that  history 
repeats  itself,  but  that  people  learn 
so  little  from  these  repetitions.  Judging 
from  current  comment,  it  might  be  imag 
ined  that  neutrality,  as  a  national  policy, 
was  the  naive  and  original  conception  of 
Woodrow  Wilson,  when,  as  a  matter  of  rec 
ord,  the  doctrine  was  first  declared  by 
Washington  himself,  and  reiterated  time 
and  again  by  the  Presidents  that  followed 
him.  And  just  as  Woodrow  Wilson  is 
abused  for  upholding  this  fixed  principle  of 
national  conduct,  so  was  abuse  of  incredible 
malignity  heaped  upon  the  Father  of  the 
Country,  Jefferson,  Adams,  Pierce,  Van 
Buren,  Lincoln,  Grant,  and  Harrison. 

Given  certain  changes  in  names,  the  chron 
icle  of  1793  might  well  serve  as  the  chron- 

46 


•   "National  Honor"  47 

icle  of  1916.  Over  in  Europe  the  French, 
having  sent  Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette  to 
death,  were  measuring  their  arms  against 
the  combined  forces  of  Great  Britain, 
Spain,  Holland,  Austria,  and  Prussia. 
Back  from  Paris  came  Thomas  Jefferson, 
afire  with  sympathy,  eager  for  the  United 
States  to  plunge  into  the  pit  of  blood.  Also 
came  Citizen  Genet,  accredited  as  minister 
to  this  country  by  the  French  republic,  a 
zealous  person,  determined  to  force  us  into 
war  on  the  side  of  France  whether  we  would 
or  no,  fomenting  conspiracies,  scattering 
commissions  for  privateers,  even  before 
the  presentation  of  his  credentials. 

The  nation  divided  even  as  to-day. 
There  was  a  "  British  party "  and  a 
"French  party";  the  rising  flood  of  hate 
tore  at  the  frail  foundations  of  the  new 
Government,  and  then,  in  the  day  of  ex 
treme  tension,  President  Washington  issued 
a  proclamation  of  neutrality.  How  they  at 
tacked  him  for  it !  French  party  and  Brit 
ish  party,  equally  angered,  searched  their 
souls  for  new  epithets,  and  the  political 


48  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

leaders  of  the  day  led  mobs  against  the 
White  House,  and  talked  of  pulling  Wash 
ington  from  the  Presidential  chair. 

To  strengthen  this  policy,  and  to  safe 
guard  the  United  States  against  the  con 
tinual  threat  of  war,  Washington  then  en 
tered  into  various  negotiations  for  the 
amicable  settlement  of  existing  disputes. 
Outstanding  differences  with  England  were 
settled  by  the  Jay  Treaty  in  1794,  and  a 
treaty  with  Spain  secured  to  the  United 
States  the  free  navigation  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Kiver,  and  the  use  of  the  port  of 
New  Orleans  for  ten  years. 

The  name  of  Washington  was  hooted  in 
every  city,  Jay  was  burned  in  effigy,  Ham 
ilton  stoned  in  the  City  of  New  York, 
Virginia  cried  for  disunion,  Democrats 
adorned  their  hats  with  the  French  cockade, 
and  the  Roosevelts  of  that  day  clamored 
for  a  guillotine.  And  yet  in  less  than  four 
years  the  whole  tide  of  feeling  changed, 
and  as  a  result  of  French  insults,  French 
depredations  and  oppression,  the  people 
clamored  for  President  Adams  to  declare 


"National  Honor3'  49 

war  against  France.  But  though  Adams 
called  Washington  from  retirement  to  be 
commander-in-chief,  and  built  twelve  war 
ships  for  aggressive  action,  he  still  con 
tinued  to  have  reliance  in  "note-writing," 
and  in  1800,  after  two  years  of  trying  ne 
gotiation,  an  amicable  settlement  was 
reached  that  acknowledged  and  guarantied 
every  right  for  which  the  United  States  had 
been  contesting. 

Times  without  number  these  hard-won 
rights  of  neutrality  have  been  violated.  In 
every  instance  the  American  people,  taking 
fire  furiously,  have  cried  for  war  as  the 
one  means  of  vindicating  the  "national 
honor ";  in  every  instance  a  President  of 
the  United  States  has  had  the  courage  to 
hold  to  the  orderly  diplomatic  procedure 
of  Washington  and  Adams,  eventually  win 
ning  justice  without  resort  to  war. 

In  1807,  during  the  administration  of  Jef 
ferson,  the  deadly  grapple  between  France 
and  England  swept  American  commerce 
from  the  seas.  British  "orders"  and 
French  "decrees"  placed  the  vessels  of  the 


50  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

United  States  at  the  mercy  of  the  warring 
powers,  and  great  loss  and  unbearable  hu 
miliation  resulted.  The  Chesapeake  affair 
came  as  a  climax. 

Four  of  the  crew  of  the  Melampus,  a 
British  ship  lying  off  Annapolis,  deserted 
and  enlisted  for  service  on  the  Chesapeake, 
then  fitting  out  in  the  Washington  Navy- 
yard.  The  British  Government  made  for 
mal  demand  for  their  surrender,  but  Jef 
ferson  refused,  upon  learning  that  three  of 
the  deserters  were  American  seamen  who 
were  merely  escaping  from  impressment. 

On  June  22,  as  the  Chesapeake  left 
Hampton  Eoads,  H.  M.  S.  Leopard  fell  in 
behind,  and,  once  out  at  sea,  hailed  the 
Chesapeake  and  sent  a  lieutenant  aboard 
with  an  order  for  the  arrest  of  the  four 
deserters.  As  a  consequence  of  Commo 
dore  Barren's  refusal,  the  Leopard  raked 
the  Chesapeake  with  solid  shot,  killing 
three  and  wounding  eighteen,  and  then, 
when  the  American  flag  came  down, 
boarded  a  second  time,  and  took  off  the 
four  deserters. 


"National  Honor"  51 

The  crisis  afforded  a  chance  for  the  peo 
ple  to  judge  between  the  irresponsibility  of 
the  private  person  and  the  responsibility  of 
the  official.  Jefferson  as  a  citizen  had  been 
a  leader  in  the  denunciation  of  Washington 
for  his  refusal  to  plunge  into  the  European 
war  on  the  side  of  France,  but  Jefferson  as 
President  calmed  immeasurably  under  the 
realization  that  the  fate  of  a  nation,  the 
lives  of  thousands,  hung  upon  his  decisions. 
Appreciating  the  "  maniac  state  of  Eu 
rope/'  he  made  the  whole  matter  the  sub 
ject  of  diplomatic  exchanges,  and  even 
tually  won  complete  disavowal  of  the  act 
from  England,  restoration  of  the  men,  and 
full  indemnity. 

Martin  Van  Buren  was  the  next  Presi 
dent  to  reaffirm  Washington's  policy  of 
neutrality,  and  to  stand  firm  against  the 
passions  of  the  people.  In  1837,  Canada 
surged  in  revolt  against  the  rule  of  Eng 
land,  and  American  sympathy  rose  to  a 
pitch  where  whole  companies  were  organ 
ized  in  the  United  States  and  sent  across 
the  border  to  aid  the  insurgents.  Among 


52  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

other  decisive  acts,  an  American  force  took 
possession  of  Navy  Island,  two  miles  above 
Niagara  Falls,  fortifying  it  with  seven  hun 
dred  men,  twenty  cannon,  and  the  steam 
boat  Caroline.  A  party  of  Royalists,  cross 
ing  from  the  Canadian  shore  one  midnight, 
set  fire  to  the  Caroline,  cut  her  adrift,  and 
sent  her  over  the  falls. 

President  Van  Buren  issued  a  proclama 
tion  of  neutrality,  sent  General  Winfield 
Scott  to  the  border  to  enforce  the  order, 
and  entered  into  successful  negotiations 
with  Great  Britain  for  the  settlement  of  all 
differences. 

Every  one  of  the  four  years  of  the  Presi 
dency  of  Franklin  Pierce  was  marked  by 
crises  that  would  have  led  to  war  but  for 
the  fact  that  Washington's  doctrine  of  neu 
trality  had  become  a  fundamental  princi 
ple  of  American  life.  The  Spanish  author 
ities  in  Cuba  seized  the  American  steamer 
Black  Warrior  and  confiscated  her  cargo; 
the  filibustering  exploits  of  Walker  in 
Mexico  and  Central  America  brought  the 
United^  States  into  critical  relations  with 


"National  Honor"  53 

the  Central  American  states,  and  the  bold 
action  of  the  British  in  enlisting  recruits  in 
this  country  for  the  Crimean  campaign 
forced  President  Pierce  to  dismiss  the  Brit 
ish  minister  and  the  British  consuls  at  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  and  Cincinnati.  All 
these  difficulties  were  settled  by  peaceful 
negotiation. 

Lincoln,  added  to  his  other  difficulties, 
was  forced  to  cdhtend  with  the  enmity  of 
Great  Britain  and  France,  both  nations 
seeming  equally  anxious  for  the  overthrow 
of  the  Union,  moved  alike  by  certain  na 
tional  envies  and  the  greed  stirred  by  the 
Confederacy's  offer  of  free  trade  in  cotton. 
England  hurriedly  accorded  belligerents' 
rights  to  the  Confederacy,  and  France 
turned  private  and  national  shipbuilding 
yards  over  to  the  uses  of  the  South.  From 
France  and  England  came  the  Confederate 
raiders  that  destroyed  193  American  ships. 

The  "Trent  Affair,"  by  reason  of  its 
wide  illustrative  sweep,  may  be  recalled 
with  immense  profit  by  the  jingoes  of  to 
day.  Mason  and  Slidell,  Confederate  com- 


54  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

missioners  to  France,  passengers  on  board 
the  British  mail-steamer  Trent,  were  for 
cibly  seized  by  Captain  Wilkes  of  the 
American  warship  San  Jacinto,  conveyed 
to  Boston,  and  lodged  in  Fort  Warren  as 
prisoners  of  state.  Although  the  action 
was  supported  enthusiastically  by  the  peo 
ple  of  the  North,  it  was  a  flagrant  viola 
tion  of  England's  neutral  rights,  and  the 
great  body  of  English  clamored  for  war. 
Instead  of  that,  Great  Britain  took  up  the 
matter  through  diplomatic  channels,  Presi 
dent  Lincoln  disavowed  the  act  of  Captain 
Wilkes,  Mason  and  Slidell  were  released, 
and  the  rights  of  neutrality  were  once  more 
defined  and  declared. 

Steadfastly  holding  to  the  efficacy  of 
"notes"  as  opposed  to  Seward's  continual 
insistence  upon  war,  President  Lincoln 
forced  ample  reparation  from  England  for 
her  various  outrages,  and  in  the  end  won 
Lord  Russell's  famous  order  that  no  more 
vessels  should  be  fitted  out  in  Great  Britain 
or  tolerated  in  British  waters  for  preying 
on  the  commerce  of  the  United  States  by 


"National  Honor"  55 

persons  in  the  employ  of  the  "  so-called 
Confederate  States." 

In  1873  the  Virginius,  flying  the  Ameri 
can  flag,  was  captured  off  Jamaica  by  the 
Spanish  warship  Tornado.  Taken  into  the 
port  of  Santiago,  four  of  the  ship's  pas 
sengers  were  hanged  as  pirates,  and  Cap 
tain  Fry  and  thirty-six  other  Americans 
were  lined  up  against  a  wall  and  shot. 
President  Grant  instructed  Secretary  of 
State  Fish  to  take  up  the  matter  with  Spain 
at  once,  but  so  great  was  the  popular  de 
mand  for  war  that  the  names  of  the  Presi 
dent  and  the  secretary  were  hissed  at  pub 
lic  meetings. 

The  demands  of  the  United  States  were 
the  restoration  of  the  Virginius,  release  and 
delivery  to  the  United  States  of  the  pris 
oners  still  living,  the  salute  of  the  United 
States  flag,  and  the  signal  punishment  of 
the  officials  concerned  in  the  capture.  As  a 
result  of  Grant's  phrase-making  and  note- 
writing,  Spain  agreed  to  meet  these  de 
mands  if  the  facts  in  the  case  were  as  rep 
resented,  and  a  protocol  was  signed.  In- 


56  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

vestigation  disclosed  that  the  Virginius  was 
owned  by  a  syndicate  of  Cuban  revolution 
ists,  and  that  while  her  papers  were  osten 
sibly  those  of  a  peaceful  trader,  she  was 
in  reality  a  filibuster.  The  United  States, 
therefore,  withdrew  its  demand  for  a  salute 
to  the  flag,  Spain  paid  an  indemnity  of 
eighty  thousand  dollars  to  the  heirs,  and 
the  incident  was  closed. 

It  is  not  alone  the  present  peace  and 
honor  of  the  United  States  that  lie  staked 
on  the  coming  election,  but  the  peace  and 
honor  of  the  nation  during  all  the  years 
that  are  to  come.  A  repudiation  of  Wood- 
row  Wilson  involves  the  repudiation  of  the 
policy  of  neutrality,  and  a  return  to  the  evil 
days  when  armed  force  was  the  one  method 
of  adjusting  disputes,  when  every  war  was 
a  world  war,  when  blood  lust  ruled,  and 
when  human  lives  were  pawns  in  the  greedy 
game  of  territorial  acquisition.  It  isjivili- 
zation  itself  that  Woodrpw^WilsoijJbas  been 
fighting  for,  and  as  the  people  of  America 
vote,  so  will  their  stage  of  civilizational  de 
velopment  be  measured. 


CHAPTER  V 

MANUFACTURING   HYSTERIA 

OOKING  back,  " preparedness"  is 
seen  to  have  been  less  of  an  agitation 
and  more  of  an  explosion.  One  day  the 
country  went  about  its  business,  aware  of 
needs  and  failures,  but  held  to  strength  and 
confidence  by  decent  resolves ;  the  next  saw 
it  plunged  into  an  abyss  of  self-slander. 
A  rain  of  terror  and  abuse  beat  upon  the 
land  and  its  people. 

Books,  magazines,  and  newspapers 
blazed  with  thrilling  fiction  that  described 
the  descent  of  foreign  foes  upon  the  United 
States,  the  terrific  bombardments  that 
made  a  mock  of  our  laughable  defense,  jhe 
capture  and  the  sack  of  great  cities,  the 
wild  flight  of  our  armie_s±_and  the  destruc 
tion  of  our  navie^,_the_^creanas_.of  women 
borne  away  into  shameful  captivity,  the 
last  moans  of  slaughtered  innocents* 

57 


58  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

With  the  utmost  circumstantiality  it  was 
pointed  out  that  there  was  hoT  one  single 
solitary  reason  why  an  alien  force  of  four 
hundred  thousand  armed  men  could  not  be 
landed  on  the  shores  of  America  almost 
overnight,  that  not  a  single  city  on  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  was  guarded  against 
pillage,  and  that  as  rolls  the  tidal- wave, 
so  would  the  invading  host  sweep  from 
east  to  west,  leaving  waste  and  death  be 
hind. 

No  tradition  dear  to  the  heart  of  Amer 
ica  was  spared;  no  monument  went  with 
out  its  mud.  With  the  painstaking  care 
that  is  presumed  to  be  saved  for  labors  of 
love,  Eevolutionary  records  were  searched 
to  show  that  the  soldiers  of  Washington 
were  for  the  most  part  a  cowardly  lot,  and 
that  victory  was  the  result  of  chance 
rather  than  courage.  Gloatingly,  fondly, 
the  desertions  of  the  Civil  War  were  re 
counted,  and  the  slime  of  detraction  spread 
over  every  battle  from  Manassas  to  Ap- 
pomattox. 

"War  correspondents/7  with  a  round- 


Manufacturing  Hysteria          59 

trip  ticket  in  one  hand  and  a  lunch-basket 
in  the  other,  visited  Europe,  and  returned 
to  alarm  us  with  their  ponderous  judg 
ments.  Eich  expatriates,  driven  to  Amer 
ica  by  the  cessation  of  social  life  in  Lon 
don  and  the  Continental  centers,  waxed 
fervid  in  denunciation  of  America's  pol 
troonery,  and  described  at  length  the  con 
tempt  in  which  we  were  held  abroad. 

Novelists anH •  jjioit-stm^y  writers,  quick 
to  realize  that  their  sex  stuff  was  no  longer 
in  demand,  turned  quickly  to  "patriotism, " 
and  thundered  denunciations  of  America's 
sordidness,  with  now  and  then  a  touch  of 
the  elaborately  sarcastic  by  comparing  the 
United  States  to  Liberia.  The  deeps  of 
obscurity  gave  up  queer  figures  to  take 
cocksure  places  at  the  heads  of  the  various 
leagues  and  associations  and  committees 
that  bubbled  into  being  in  every  city  and 
every  State. 

All  sense  of  humor,  of  fitness,  of  propor 
tion,  of  decency  even,  seemed  to  vanish. 
Men  responsible  for  the  embalmed  beef  and 
paper-soled  shoes  of  the  Spanish- American 


60  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

War  denounced  and  exhorted;  nonde 
scripts  became  arbiters,  and  as  a  last 
crowning  contribution  to  the  general  mad 
ness,  a  group  of  wealthy  women  began  to 
gather  a  list  of  the  summer  homes  that 
could  be  used  to  care  for  wounded  soldiers 
in  event  of  war ! 

It  must  be  admitted  that  no  intelligent 
effort  was  made  to  stem  the  tide  of  agita 
tion.  The  fact  did  stand  clear  that  the 
world  had  not  yef  progressed  to  a  point 
where  war  may  be  dismissed  from  human 
calculation;  the  fact  did  stand  clear,  jhat 
the  United  States  was  grossly  unprepared 
in  many  vital  particulars.  Instead  of  ad 
mitting  these  facts,  and  demanding  that 
they  be  dealt  with  sanely  and  intelligently, 
the  opposition  ignored  them.  Had  the 
forces  of  democracy  taken  "real  prepared 
ness''  as  a  battle-cry,  pointing  to  Russia 
and  England  as  examples  of  the  folly  that 
puts  all  emphasis  on  ships  and  guns  rather 
than  upon  the  health,  strength,  and  patri 
otism  of  the  people,  there  might  have  been 
effective  resistance.  By  adopting  "anti- 


Manufacturing  Hysteria          61 

preparedness--'  as  a  slogan,  however,  not 
only  did  they  affront  the  convictions  of  the 
mass,  but  dissipated  their  own  energies  in 
stupidly  negative  effort. 

As  a  consequence,  the  agencies  of  hys 
teria  were  given  a  clear  field  for  their  ac 
tivities,  and  that  wjiich  should  have  been 
no  more  than  a  matter  of  orderly,  non- 
partizan  procedure  is  now  a  bitter,  muddled 
issue  to  be  settled  at  the  polls  in  November. 
Perhaps,  after  all,  it  is  just  as  well,  for 
while  preparedness  itself  is  a  detail,  the 
whole  question  has  come  to  be  involved 
with  tremendous  decisions  that  have  vital 
bearing  on  the  future  of  democracy. 

A  first  task  of  understanding  is  to  grasp 
the  utter  falsity  of  much  that  has  been  said 
and  written.  Even  while  the  "  ready-to- 
serve  "  writers  were  turning  out  their 
lurid  tales  of  invasion  and  conquest,  Gen 
eral  Erasmus  Weaver,  head  of  the  coast 
artillery,  was  testifying  before  a  congres 
sional  committee  to  this  effect;  that  n,o 
fortifications  in  the  whole  world  compared 
favorably  with  the  coast  defenses  of  the 


62  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

United  States;  that  with  an  additional 
eleven  thousand  men  complete  adequacy 
would  be  secured;  that  the  hysterical  as 
sumption  that  our  seaboard  was  open  to 
easy  conquest  was  mere  farrago. 

At  the  same  time,  also,  the  Allies  were 
abandoning  the  Gallipoli  attack,  beating 
a  retreat  that  in  itself  was  a  confession  of 
ghastly  failure.  The  Turks  had  no  such 
fortifications  as  ours,  no  such  guns,  nor 
were  they  possessed  of  any  naval  aid  what 
soever,  yet  after  a  year  of  incessant  effort, 
during  which  the  Allies  concentrated  navies 
and  armies,  the  landing  force  never  got 
beyond  the  range  of  the  guns  of  the  ships. 
It  is  also  well  to  remember  that  it  required 
thirty-three  days  for  England  to  move 
thirty-three  thousand  unequipped  troops 
between  Quebec  and  Southampton,  al 
though  the  journey  was  between  friendly 
ports. 

A  second  task -is  to  dismiss  Mr.  Eoose- 
velt  as  the  source  of  the  preparedness  hys 
teria  or  even  as  an  executive  agent  in  its 
promotion.  Nothing  is  more  safe  than  to 


Manufacturing  Hysteria          63 

set  him  down  as  the  megaphone  that  gave 
carrying  power  to  the  thoughts,  purposes, 
and  directions  of  the  giant  forces  that  chose 
to  remain  unseen.  It  may  be  that  he  was 
an  unconscious  tool,  simply  seeing  the  rise 
of  the  movement,  and  springing  forward 
in  instant  appreciation  that  passion  and 
prejudice  were  the  only  possible  weapons 
to  be  used  against  President  Wilson.  Or, 
again,  it  may  be  that  he  was  a  willing  pawn 
in  the  game  of  hate,  a  sinister  interpreta 
tion  that  gains  strength  by  virtue  of  his 
abject  surrender  in  the  hour  of  personal 
defeat. 

In  either  case,  his  role  was  subordinate. 
The  intelligence  that  conceived  the  prepar 
edness  madness,  the  power  that  gave  it 
force  and  effect,  proceeded  in  no  degree 
from  any  one  man  or  men,  but  took  shape 
as  the  definite  policy  of  that  mysterious, 
titanic  thing  that  is  variously  referred  to 
as  high  finance,  big  business,  special  priv 
ilege,  or  Wall  Street.  This  policy  may  be 
expressed  in  the  one  word — imperialism. 

The  situation,  as  well  as  its  successive 


64  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

creative  events,  come  very  clear  under 
scrutiny.  B^rstjv^e_have_Jiie  growth  of 
combinations,  syndicates,  and  monopolies, 
bringing  with  them  an  undreamed  eoncen- 
tration  of  wealth  and  power.  As  an  in 
evitable  result  of  monopolization,  with  its 
lordly  control  of  prices,  surplus  capital 
began  to  accumulate,  piling  up  in  the  ^re_a1 
financial  centers,  and  constituting  in  itself 
an  imperative  problem.  Two  causes  op 
erated  powerfully  against  its  employment 
in  domestic  development. 

First,  a  very  definite  change  in  American 
conditions.  In  the  dawn  of  the  industrial 
order  a  warm  geniality  enveioped~alTbusi- 
ness  without  respect  to  size  or  purpose,  and 
"empire  builders"  and  "captains  oFTn- 
dustry"  were  phrases  that  lingered  jplaas- 
antly  in  the  popular  mouth.  As  time  went 
by,  however,  scandals  bubbled,  and  out  of 
public  knowledge  of  the  corrupt  control  of 
courts,  legislative  bodies,  and  executive 
officials  the  people  learned  to  distinguish 
between  development  and  exploitation,  be 
tween  legitimate  business  and  loaded-dice 


Manufacturing  Hysteria          65 

business.  This  new  intelligence  resulted 
in  the  Inter-state  Commerce  Commission, 
the  growth  of  municipal  ownership,  the 
fight  for  conservation  of  the  natural  re 
sources,  the  direct  election  of  United  States 
senators,  anti-trust  laws,  the  Federal  Trade 
Commission,  and  rural  credits  legislation, 
all  working  in  some  degree  to  make  do 
mestic  investment  less  than  attractive  for 
those  accustomed  to  tremendous  returns. 

Second,  to  use  surplus  capital  along 
purely  industrial  lines  would  impair  the 
very  monopolization  that  they  had  been  at 
such  pains  to  create.  New  railroads,  new 
enterprises,  if  launched,  would  not  only  put 
them  in  the  position  of  competing  with 
themselves,  but  might  also  lessen  their  iron 
control  over  supply  and  demand. 

Naturally,  inevitably,  the  money  masters 
began  to  turn  their  eyes  away  from  the 
United  States,  fixing  them  upon  such  for 
eign  countries  as  had  not  yet  been  taught 
the  bitter  difference  between  development 
and  exploitation,  between  enterprise  and 
rapacity.  Weak  peoples,  as  a  matter  of 


66  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

course,  either  at  the  mercy  of  venal  dicta 
tors,  with  whom  profitable  bargains  might 
be  made  in  the  matter  of  contracts  and  con 
cessions  or  else  overrun  by  greedy  merce 
naries  willing  to  put  themselves  at  the  dis 
posal  of  generous  employers. 

Surplus  capital  began  to  flow  into  Mex 
ico  and  Central  America,  just  as  the  sur 
plus  capital  of  England  had  flowed  into 
South  Africa,  Egypt  and  India ;  just  as  the 
surplus  capital  of  France  went  into  Mo 
rocco  ;  just  as  the  surplus  capital  of  Kussia 
and  England  went  into  Persia ;  just  as  the 
surplus  capital  of  Germany  went  into  Tur 
key;  just  as  the  surplus  capital  of  Japan 
went  into  China. 

As  a  fly  in  the  ointment,  however,  was 
the  traditional  refusal  of  the  United  States 
to  let  its  armies  and  navies  be  used  by  high 
finance  as  debt-collecting  agencies.  No 
such  drawback  menaced  the  foreign  gam 
bles  of  Europe's  surplus  capital.  As  far 
back  as  the  foreign  secretaryship  of  Lord 
Palmerston,  England  had  yielded  to  the 
demands  of  money,  and  announced  its 


Manufacturing  Hysteria          67 

"rights  of  protection"  policy  that  placed 
the  military  power  of  the  empire  behind 
every  concessionaire.  All  the  stronger  na 
tions  of  Europe  followed  England's  exam 
ple,  virtually  agreeing  to  bully  weak  peo 
ples  in  behalf  of  surplus  capital. 

During  the  administration  of  President 
Taf  t,  American  high  finance  made  a  deter 
mined  effort  to  gain  the  same  powerful 
backing  that  had  permitted  Europe's  high 
finance  to  plunder  Morocco,  Algeria,  Tunis, 
India,  Africa,  and  Persia.  Loans  were  to 
be  made  to  Central  American  governments 
under  treaty  agreement  that  the  United 
States  should  have  the  right  to  intervene 
in  case  of  revolution.  Had  the  deal  gone 
through,  what  would  have  been  more  sim 
ple  than  to  manufacture  a  revolution,  bring 
about  intervention,  and  then,  with  Ameri 
can  arms  on  hand  to  give  the  necessary 
peace  and  order,  proceed  with  the  highly 
profitable  work  of  exploitation? 

Even  though  defeated  in  the  scheme,  de 
spite  the  ardent  assistance  of  Mr.  Taft 
and  Secretary  Knox,  high  finance  did  not 


68  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

despair,  but  turned  to  China.  In  1912  this 
unhappy  country  was  compelled  to  become 
an  urgent  borrower.  A  syndicate  of  Eng 
lish,  French,  and  German  banks  had  been 
enjoying  a  monopoly  of  Chinese  looting, 
but  Japan  and  Eussia  had  begun  to  clamor 
for  a  share,  and  American  interests  had 
grown  sufficiently  powerful  to  demand  con 
sideration.  As  a  consequence,  the  "  six- 
power  "  group  was  formed,  and  China  told 
that  in  order  to  get  the  $30,000,000  that  she 
needed,  the  sum  of  $300,000,000  must  be 
borrowed.  In  addition  to  this,  there  were 
the  further  stipulations  that  the  expendi 
ture  of  the  loan,  as  well  as  the  administra 
tion  of  the  salt  monopoly,  should  be  placed 
under  the  control  of  men  designated  by  the 
lenders.  The  English,  German,  Kussian, 
French,  and  Japanese  financiers  proceeded 
in  the  full  knowledge  that  their  various 
countries  were  willing  to  protect  their  ex 
tortions  to  the  point  of  intervention  and 
conquest,  and  the  Morgan  interests,  repre 
senting  the  American  syndicate,  felt  as 
sured  that  President  Taft  and  Secretary 


Manufacturing  Hysteria          69 

Knox  could  be  trusted  to  an  equal  ex 
tent. 

Before  the  contracts  could  be  completed, 
however,  President  Taft  and  Secretary 
Knox  sank  from  sight,  and  President  Wil 
son,  in  his  very  first  month  of  office,  repu 
diated  an  arrangement  that  struck  at  the 
"administrative  integrity  of  China, "  and 
put  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States 
at  the  disposal  of  a  Wall  Street  group. 
Sadly  enough,  the  American  syndicate 
withdrew,  and  sadly  enough  the  remaining 
five  powers,  frightened  by  the  search-light 
thus  turned  on  them,  reduced  its  terms 
to  a  $125,000  loan,  and  gave  over  their  de 
mands  for  full  control  of  the  salt  monopoly. 

It  is  ^ighjfinajoce^. witL  its_.siirplns  capi- 
taljmdJLtjMivid^^ 

that  are  to  be  found  in  weak,  undeveloped 
countries,  that  is  behind_  the  preparedness 
agitation,  that  is  behind  the  desperate  at 
tempt  to  destroy  Woodrow  Wilson.  It  is 
not  a  preparedness  for  defense  that  these 
forces  desire,  but  a  preparedness  for  ag 
gression. 


70  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

Their  propaganda,  carried  on  through 
the  magazines  and  the  newspapers  that 
they  owned,  the  Bepublican  party  that  they 
control,  and  the  politicians  and  writers 
that  they  have  been  able  to  prostitute,  has 
a  twofold  purpose;  first,  the  promotiqrT6T 
a  great  military  and  naval  establishment 
that  will  permit  them  to  bully  with  the  best ; 
second,  the  elimination  of  a  President  who 
has  stood  in  their  way,  and  who  will  con 
tinue  to  stand  in  their  way  if  reflected. 

The  issue,  in  its  very  essence,  is  empire 
versus  democracy.  The  question  that  the 
people  of  the  United  States  are  called  upon 
to  answer  is  this :  ~l5xe"wel£a ^continue  as 
a  democratic  people,  holding  to .our  ancient 
faith  in  liberty  and  justice  as  great  gov 
erning  principles,  or  are  we  to  turn  .Amer 
ica  over  to  a  group  of  financiers,  denation 
alized  by  greed,  drunk  with  a  dream^of 
imperialism,  and  blind  to  every  domestic 
need? 

It  is  a  decision  between  the  decent,  or 
derly  development  of  our  own  resources, 
to  the  end  that  wretchedness,  injustice,  and 


Manufacturing  Hysteria          71 

ignorance  shall  be  eliminated  from  the  na 
tional  life,  and  a  return  to  the  feudal  mad 
ness  that  places  a  people  at  the  disposal  of 
lords  and  overlords,  to  be  used  as  the  dumb 
instruments  of  rapacity;  a  choice  between 
the  ideals  of  peace  and  the  sordid  shame 
of  continual  money  wars. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   NATIONAL.   DEFENSE 

THE  confusion  and  indirection  that 
have  attended  the  discussion  of  a  de 
fense  program  are  an  indictment  of  our 
governmental  system  rather  than  an  in 
dictment  of  men  or  even  of  parties.  There 
is  no  opportunity  whatever  for  the  expres 
sion  of  public  opinion  on  great  issues  as 
they  arise,  and  the  quadrennial  election  is 
scarce  more  than  the  field-day  of  partizan 
prejudice. 

With  regard  to  the  form  and  extent  of 
preparedness,  the  President  received  no 
command,  and  Congress,  equally  unad 
vised,  stumbled  and  stuttered  in  a  pitiable 
state  of  uncertainty.  Mr.  Mann,  speaking 
for  the  Eepublican  minority,  was  certain 
that  action  must  be  taken,  but  when  pressed 

72 


The  National  Defense  73 

for  details,  flatly  disavowed  support  of  a 
large  standing  army  or  compulsory  serv 
ice.  The  President's  solemn  speech  at 
Topeka  was  followed  within  twenty-four 
hours  by  a  vote  of  the  State  Grange  of 
Kansas  that  put  a  million  farmers  on 
record  against  a  single  dollar  of  increase 
in  the  present  army  and  navy  appropria 
tions. 

Regardless  of  where  Mr.  Wilson  stood 
in  1914,  when  the  sentiment  of  the  country 
was  unanimous  against  action  that  might 
have  been  regarded  as .  inflammatory  and 
aggressive,  the  fact  remains  that  his  later 
advocacy  of  preparedness  was  as  clear  and 
bold  as  words  could  make  it.  Nor  did  he 
fail  to  indicate  the  course  that  he  believed 
should  be  taken. 

In  all  of  his  speeches  he  declared  his 
friendliness  to  a  plan  that  would  give  the 
United  States  a  citizen  soldiery  along 
Swiss  or  Australian  lines,  and  with  equal 
force  he  placed  himself  on  record  against 
any  attempt  to  base  home  defense  upon  the 
organized  militia.  He  said: 


74  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

There  are  a  hundred  million  people  in  this 
country,  but  there  are  only  129,000  men  in  the 
National  Guard,  and  those  129,000  men  are  under 
the  direction,  by  the  constitutional  arrangements 
of  our  system,  of  the  governors  of  more  than  two- 
score  States.  The  President  of  the  United  States 
is  not  at  liberty  to  call  them  out  of  their  States  ex 
cept  upon  the  occasion  of  actual  invasion  of  the 
territory  of  the  United  States.  ...  I  want  Con 
gress  to  do  a  great  deal  for  the  National  Guard, 
but  I  do  not  see  how  Congress  can  put  the  Na 
tional  Guard  at  the  disposal  of  the  nation. 

What  else  could  have  been  done  by  him 
save  the  arbitrary  adoption  of  some  one 
plan,  drawing  up  Ms  own  bill,  and  attempt 
ing  to  force  it  upon  a  Congress  torn  to 
pieces  by  a  thousand  indecisions?  Out  of 
the  babel  what  clear  word  is  there  for  his 
guidance  ? 

The  militarists,  with  their  dream  of  em 
pire,  preach  a  preparedness  that  would 
turn  the  United  States  into  an  armed  camp, 
and  a  program  of  naval  increase  that  would 
burden  the  country  with  a  terrible,  crush 
ing  load  of  taxation.  The  pacifists  go  to 
an  extreme  that  takes  no  account  of  present 


The  National  Defense  75 

dangers  or  future  needs,  and  stand  as  iron 
against  augmentation  of  either  army  or 
navy.  A  middle  ground  must  be  found, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  but  who  can  tell  just 
when  the  ground  is  middle  1 

With  regard  to  the  navy,  no  principle  is 
involved,  the  whole  question  centering 
about  size  and  efficiency.  Land  defense, 
however,  is  not  only  debatable,  but  will 
continue  to  be  debatable  for  a  long  time  to 
come,  and  the  debate  rages  as  fiercely 
wherever  citizens  gather  as  it  does  in  Con 
gress.  An  issue  so  vitally  concerned  with 
the  life  and  future  of  democracy  is  not 
determinable  in  a  day  or  by  the  violences 
of  extremists. 

The  intelligent  thought  of  the  country  is 
fixed  upon  some  sound  system  of  general 
training  after  the  Swiss  and  Australian 
models,  but  it  is  equally  certain  that  the 
great  mass  of  people,  out  of  a  blind  fear  of 
militarism,  are  not  yet  ready  for  the  step. 
Senator  Chamberlain's  bill,  prepared  with 
the  approval  of  the  President,  and  pro 
viding  for  the  general  training  of  Ameri- 


76  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

can  youth,  died  without  a  Democratic  or 
Eepublican  voice  to  speak  for  it. 

With  regard  to  the  Hay  bill,  with  its  pro 
posed  f  ederalization  of  the  National  Guard, 
nothing  is  more  unfair  than  the  hasty  gen 
eralization  that  writes  it  down  as  a  "pork 
measure."  While  political  considerations 
played  an  undoubted  part  in  its  passage, 
back  of  the  bill  was  the  driving  force  of 
one  hundred  and  thirty-eight  years  of  tra 
dition.  The  organized  militia,  with  all  its 
glaring  faults,  is  still  an  American  insti 
tution,  bed-rocked  in  habit  and  prejudice; 

In  1903,  with  Mr.  Koosevelt  in  the  White 
House,  and  the  Eepublican  party  in  abso 
lute  control  of  Congress,  the  question  of 
home  defense  arose,  and  the  answer  made 
was  the  Dick  bill,  which  provided  federal 
aid  for  the  upbuilding  of  the  National 
Guard.  Since  that  time  the  Government 
has  spent  over  $75,000,000  under  the  Dick 
Law,  and  much  of  the  support  received  by 
the  Hay  bill  was  due  to  a  feeling  that  the 
investment  was  worth  protecting. 

Whatever  one  may  think  of  the  fitness 


The  National  Defense  77 

or  unfitness  of  the  National  Guard,  the 
fact  stands  clear  that  its  membership  re 
sponded  instantly  and  generously,  quitting 
civil  pursuits  for  the  hardships  of  the  bor 
der  without  a  murmur. 

There  has  been  no  opportunity  yet  to 
test  the  merits  of  the  Hay  Law.  It  may 
work  well  or  badly,  but  since  the  bill  has 
passed,  and  since  tens  of  thousands  are 
serving  their  country  in  arms,  justice  de 
mands  that  it  be  given  a  fair  chance  to 
show  what  it  will  do. 

Supplementing  the  Hay  bill  is  an  exten 
sion  of  the  " Plattsbur g  idea/'  first  intro 
duced  successfully  in  1915.  The  sum  of 
$2,000,000  has  been  provided  to  maintain 
these  camps  without  expense  to  those  who 
attend,  a  wise  improvement  that  will  put 
this  training  within  reach  of  all. 

The  enlargement  of  the  army  to  175,000, 
exclusive  of  the  Philippine  scouts,  quarter 
master  corps,  and  signal  corps,  will  suit 
neither  the  militarists  nor  the  pacifists, 
but  the  figure  may  be  set  down  as  an  hon 
est  attempt  to  strike  the  medium. 


78  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

To  meet  the  demand  for  officers,  the  act 
of  May  4,  1916,  doubles  the  size  of  West 
Point,  permitting  an  attendance  of  1160 
instead  of  the  present  580.  In  addition  to 
this,  provision  is  made  for  the  promotion 
of  men  from  the  ranks  of  the  regular  army 
and  the  national  guard. 

As  in  the  case  of  submarines,  the  Wil 
son  administration  found  an  army  with 
out  air-craft,  and  an  aviation  service  given 
over  to  mess  and  muddle.  To-day  the 
army  possesses  three  complete  squadrons, 
each  consisting  of  twelve  biplanes  with 
160  horse-power  motors,  and  the  necessary 
auxiliary  equipment  of  motor-trucks  and 
traveling  machine  shops.  Orders  have 
also  been  placed  for  additional  machines, 
the  sum  of  $3,200,000  having  been  provided 
for  the  purpose.  Civilian  experts,  se 
lected  by  the  naval  consulting  board,  have 
been  placed  in  the  factories  to  aid  in  the 
work,  to  hurry  it,  and  to  see  that  specifica 
tions  are  followed.  Aviation  schools  are 
being  conducted  for  officers  and  enlisted 


The  National  Defense  79 

men,  and  arrangement  has  also  been  made 
for  the  commissioning  of  expert  aviators 
from  civil  life. 

To  those  who  look  upon  air-craft  as  a 
simple,  economical  means  of  defense,  the 
cost  figures  will  come  as  something  of  a 
shock.  The  expense  of  buying,  equipping, 
and  maintaining  a  complete  squadron  of 
twelve  biplanes  mounts  up  to  $800,000  a 
year,  after  which  a  fixed  annual  expense 
of  $600,000  may  be  counted  upon.  In  Eu 
rope,  for  instance,  no  plane  lasts  longer 
than  three  months,  wearing  out  completely 
in  that  time,  if  not  destroyed  by  shot  or 
accident.  For  the  benefit  of  such  as  place 
large  value  upon  the  opinion  of  "experts," 
it  may  be  mentioned  that  Commodore  E. 
E.  Peary  talks  carelessly  of  maintaining 
500  biplanes  on  each  coast  as  a  proper 
peace  measure,  although  the  annual  cost 
of  this  one  defense  feature  would  be 
$50,000,000. 

By  far  and  away  the  most  effective  fea 
ture  of  the  Wilson  preparedness  program, 


80  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

however,  is  the  great  work  that  has  for  its 
object  the  mobilization  of  the  industrial 
resources  of  the  United  States.  Two 
truths  have  been  made  to  stand  clear  by 
the  European  war;  one  that  battles  are 
lost  by  things,  not  men;  the  other  that  a 
fighting  force  is  no  stronger  than  the  fac 
tories  behind  it.  In  the  naval  consulting 
board,  formed  by  Secretary  Daniels,  Presi 
dent  Wilson  saw  the  big  idea  of  industrial 
preparedness,  and  straightway  wrote  the 
'request  that  brought  30,000  engineers  into 
the  work. 

Already  an  inventory  is  being  made  of 
the  factories  of  the  nation  not  only  with 
respect  to  machinery,  but  also  with  respect 
to  men.  When  this  data  is  digested,  the 
Government  will  be  possessed  of  full  and 
absolutely  accurate  information  as  to  the 
manufacture  of  munitions  in  case  of  war. 
Under  Lloyd-George 's  efficient  handling, 
England  found  that  there  was  not  a 
manufacturing  concern  of  any  kind  that 
could  not  be  changed  into  a  munition 
plant,  and  the  nature  of  the  necessary 


The  National  Defense  81 

changes  is  what  the  engineering  experts 
of  the  United  States  mean  to  discover  at 
once. 

Peace  practice  of  munition  manufacture, 
for  instance,  will  be  begun  shortly.  Small 
annual  orders  will  be  given  to  the  various 
manufacturers,  and  government  techni 
cians,  going  into  the  factories,  will  point 
out  the  adaptations  of  machinery,  instruct 
the  various  departments,  and  acquaint  the 
business  with  every  detail  of  the  work. 
As  a  result,  not  only  will  a  store  of  reserve 
supplies  be  accumulated,  but  every  factory 
in  the  nation  will  be  ready  to  play  its  part 
at  a  moment's  notice  should  war  ever  be 
declared. 

A  feature  of  the  plan  is  the  formation 
of  an  industrial  reserve,  made  up  of  the 
skilled  workers  of  the  country,  that  will 
have  the  same  standing  in  war  times  as 
the  fighting  force,  although  remaining  in 
the  factory  instead  of  taking  to  the  field. 
England  and  France,  foolishly  enlisting 
every  available  man,  found  their  muni 
tion  manufacture  demoralized  as  a  conse- 


K 


82  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

quence,  and  were  forced  to  recall  skilled 
labor  from  the  trenches.  The  industrial 
reserve  of  the  United  States  is  designed  to 
prevent  such  a  muddle. 

To  supplement  the  activities  of  these 
30,000  technicians,  the  sum  of  $2,000,000 
has  been  appropriated  for  a  laboratory  for 
purposes  of  research,  invention,  and  ex 
perimentation.  Also  $20,000,000  has  been 
provided  for  the  construction  of  a  nitrate 
plant. 

The  larger  importance  of  these  features 
of  the  President's  policy  lies  in  the  fact, 
that  industrial  preparedness  is  primarily 
a  preparedness  for  peace.  Out  of  the  in 
ventory  of  American  factories  and  the  en 
listment  of  the  patriotism  of  employer  and 
worker  alike,  is  bound  to  come  increased 
efficiency,  understanding,  and  solidarity, 
while  the  laboratory  is  as  much  an  indus 
trial  need  as  a  military  necessity. 

Coming  to  the  record  of  the  Wilson  ad 
ministration  with  regard  to  naval  pre 
paredness,  common  justice  points  out  the 
fact  that  navies  are  not  built  in  a  day  or  a 


The  National  Defense  83 

year,  and  inadequacies  must  be  traced  much 
further  back  than  1912,  if  blame  is  to  be 
allotted  justly.  It  was  in  1903  that  the 
general  board,  with  Admiral  Dewey  at  its 
head,  outlined  a  continuous  building  pro 
gram  that  had  as  its  object  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  United  States  as  the  second 
naval  power  in  the  world.  Not  only  were 
these  recommendations  disregarded  en 
tirely,  but  they  were  hidden  from  Congress 
and  the  public,  and  not  until  Secretary 
Daniels  decided  upon  full  publicity  was 
their  nature  known. 

During  the  four  years  of  the  Eoosevelt 
administration  that  followed  the  creation 
of  the  general  board,  this  expert  body 
recommended  thirteen  capital  ships,  ex 
actly  the  same  number  authorized  by  Ger 
many.  Mr.  Eoosevelt  built  six  only,  openly 
taking  issue  with  the  general  board,  and 
adopting  a  " small  navy"  policy.  In  his 
1905  message,  he  said,  "It  does  not  seem 
to  me  necessary,  however,  that  the  navy 
should — at  least  in  the  immediate  future — 
be  increased  beyond  the  present  number 


84  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

of  units. "  Again  in  his  1906  message 
he  declared:  "I  do  not  ask  that  we  con 
tinue  to  increase  our  navy.  I  ask  merely 
that  it  be  maintained  at  its  present 
strength." 

As  a  direct  consequence  of  this  attitude, 
Germany  passed  the  United  States  as  a 
naval  power  in  1909.  In  that  year  the  gen 
eral  board  recommended  four  battle-ships ; 
but  Secretary  Meyer,  after  admitting  in 
his  report,  "  Germany  is  now  second  among 
the  principal  naval  powers  in  warship  ton 
nage  built  and  building/ '  recommended, 
two  warships  only,  arid  only  two  were  built. 
In  1910  the  general  board  recommended 
four  battle-ships,  and  two  were  authorized ; 
in  1911,  four  again,  and  only  one  was  au 
thorized  ;  in  1912,  four  again,  and  only  one 
was  authorized. 

There  is  no  just  quarrel  with  Mr.  Koose- 
velt  or  Mr.  Taft,  however,  for  their  atti 
tudes  were  entirely  obedient  to  and  ex 
pressive  of  the  popular  will.  There  is  not 
the  slightest  doubt  that  had  they  followed 
the  recommendations  of  the  general  board, 


The  National  Defense  85 

building  so  hugely  during  years  of  peace, 
a  wave  of  revolt  would  have  swept  the 
country.  Where  quarrel  is  just,  however, 
is  with  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  his  partizans 
for  the  dishonesty  that  seeks  to  place  full 
blame  for  naval  inadequacy  upon  Mr.  Wil 
son,  even  going  so  far  as  to  assert  that 
German  superiority  came  after  1912,  and 
not  before. 

It  is  easy  indeed  to  tell  to-day  what 
should  have  been  done,  but  the  proper  time 
for  this  competency  to  have  displayed  itself 
was  ten  years  ago.  The  honest  thing 
for  present  concern,  however,  is  not  past 
neglects,  but  future  plans.  The  Dem 
ocratic  majority  in  Congress  meets  the 
challenge  of  the  times  with  this  naval  pro 
gram: 

A  three-year  building  program,  author 
izing  the  construction  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty-seven  new  ships,  and  calling  for  an 
appropriation  of  $588,180,576. 

It  is  planned  to  spend  $316,818,343 
straight  off,  and  the  follov/ing  ships  will 
be  begun  at  once: 


86  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

Battleships    4 

Battle  cruisers   4 

Scout  cruisers 4 

Destroyers 20 

Coast  submarines : 

800-ton  type  3 

Smaller  type 27 

Fuel  ship 1 

Ammunition  ship 1 

Hospital  ship   1 

Gunboat 1 

66 

Also  a  submarine  to  be  equipped  with  the  Neff- 
system  of  propulsion. 

The  appropriation  for  aeronautics  is 
$3,500,000;  for  ammunition,  $19,485,000; 
$11,000,000  will  be  devoted  to  the  building 
of  a  government  armor-plate  factory;  and 
all  navy-yards  will  be  enlarged  to  build 
capital  ships. 

The  personnel  of  the  navy  is  increased 
from  51,500  to  74,700,  and  the  President 
is  given  power  to  raise  the  number  to  87,- 
000  in  time  of  war. 

Admiral  Dewey,  after  careful  scrutiny 


The  National  Defense  87 

of  every  item,  is  on  record  with  the  state 
ment  that  it  is  "the  best  bill  ever  passed 
by  Congress. "  The  program  restores  the 
United  States  to  second  place  in  the  list 
of  sea  powers,  and  provides  the  nation 
with  a  strong,  well-balanced,  splendidly 
manned  navy  fit  for  every  emergency. 

It  may  be  that  the  preparedness  program 
of  the  Wilson  administration  will  not  suit 
those  who  entertain  a  dream  of  conquest 
and  aggression,  but  it  should  meet  the  ap 
proval  of  all  who  are  sincerely  in  favor  of 
an  adequate  national  defense. 


/u 

/      A 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   CASE   OF   JOSEPHUS   DANIELS 

"I  want  the  people  of  the  United  States  to 
know  that  it  is  all  right  with  the  Navy.  There 
is  no  demoralization,  no  lack  of  discipline,  no 
lack  of  enthusiasm.  The  attacks  are  as  false  as 
many  of  them  are  shameful.  The  last  three 
years  have  been  wonderful  years.  I  have  been 
in  the  Navy  since  1854,  and  both  in  material  and 
personnel,  we  are  more  efficient  to-day  than  ever 
before.  The  Naval  bill  is  the  best  bill  ever 
adopted  by  any  Congress." — ADMIRAL  GEORGE 
DEWEY'S  statement  to  the  author. 

JOSEPHUS  DANIELS,  secretary  of  the 
navy,  is  at  once  the  most  maligned  and 
most  misunderstood  man  in  the  United 
States  to-day.  To  wade  through  the  lies 
that  have  been  told  about  him,  to  discover 
the  truths  that  have  been  hidden  or  dis 
torted,  is  to  come  to  a  new  loathing  of  the 
greed  that  poisons  when  thwarted  and  to 

88 


The  Case  of  Josephus  Daniels       89 

an  added  contempt  for  the  public  that  takes 
no  larger  interest  in  a  public  servant  than 
to  swallow  every  slander  circulated  about 
him. 

Ask  the  average  citizen  about  Josephus 
Daniels,  and  he  '11  wag  his  head  and  mouth 
something  about  mountebank  and  demo- 
gogue.  Press  him  for  details,  and  he  can 
cite  none  more  definite  than  vague  gener 
alizations  that  Daniels  has  "let  the  navy 
run  down"  and  has  "made  us  a  laughing 
stock." 

This  derision  is  the  price  that  Josephus 
Daniels  has  been  made  to  pay  for  saving 
millions  of  the  people's  money  from  the 
traffickers  in  armor  plate  and  munitions; 
for  breaking  up  the  arm-chair  clique  that 
ruled  the  navy  for  years ;  for  making  merit 
the  test  of  promotion  rather  than  social 
pull ;  for  opening  the  doors  of  advancement 
to  the  enlisted  man.  He  has  given  us  a 
navy  that,  according  to  Admiral  George 
Dewey,  "is  not  excelled,  except  in  size,  by 
the  fleet  of  any  nation  in  the  world." 
Facts  and  figures  entitle  him  to  rank  with 


90  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

the  greatest  secretaries  of  history,  and  yet 
so  well  have  his  enemies  wrought  that  many 
of  the  people  for  whom  he  has  labored  grin 
at  his  name. 

Virtually  all  of  this  ridicule  has  flowed 
from  his  abolition  of  the  wine  mess.  Back 
in  1899,  Secretary  Long  issued  an  order 
forbidding  the  sale  or  issue  of  liquor  to 
enlisted  men  on  board  ship,  and  all  that 
Mr.  Daniels  did  was  to  extend  the  rule  to 
officers,  taking  the  step  upon  the  official 
recommendation  of  the  surgeon-general  of 
the  navy.  This  policy,  which  was  to  make 
the  United  States  the  "laughing  stock "  of 
the  nations,  was  followed  within  the  year 
by  all  other  world  powers.  Russia  and 
France  first,  then  Lord  Charles  Beresford 
scored  the  use  of  liquor  in  the  British  navy, 
and  after  that  Kaiser  Wilhelm,  addressing 
the  German  naval  cadets,  uttered  these 
words : 

"The  next  war  and  the  next  sea-battle  de 
mand  sound  nerves  of  you.  Nerves  will  decide. 
These  become  undermined  through  alcohol.  .  .  . 
The  nation  which  consumes  the  least  alcohol  wins, 


The  Case  of  Josephus  Daniels       91 

and  that  should  be  you,  my  gentlemen.  And 
through  you  an  example  should  be  given  the 
crews.  And  in  consequence  of  this  I  expect  of 
you  .  .  .  that  you  take  heed  thereto,  and  provide 
that  indulgence  in  alcohol  be  not  counted  as  be 
longing  to  your  privileges. ' ' 

In  the  Hearst  papers,  most  active  in  ridi-/ 
culing  the  "  grape- juice "  order,  pages  are 
devoted  to  proving  that  all  of  the  great 
businesses  of  the  country  are  refusing  to 
employ  men  who  drink.  Yet  for  the  fore 
sight  that  enabled  Josephus  Daniels  to 
point  a  way  to  the  nations  he  is  denounced. 

Another  lie  was  to  the  effect  that  he  had 
made  an  order  for  officers  and  men  to  mess 
together,  and  that  he  surrendered  the  idea 
only  when  informed  that  black  men  and 
white  might  be  brought  together  at  the 
same  table.  No  sucli  order  was  ever  made 
or  even  contemplated.  A  great  outcry  was 
manufactured  as  a  result  of  his  refusal  to 
permit  naval  officers  to  deliver  public  ad 
dresses  and  otherwise  seek  to  influence 
legislation.  This  has  been  the  law  of  the 
navy  from  time  immemorial,  and  President 


92  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

Koosevelt,  in  1902,  and  President  Taft,  in 
1909,  reinforced  the  rule  by  executive  or 
ders  that  established  dismissal  as  a  pen 
alty  for  violation.  Secretary  Daniels 
" muzzled"  no  one,  simply  inforcing  the 
iron  regulation  that  forbade  officers  from 
running  about  the  country  for  purposes  of 
propaganda.  In  order  that  all  possible 
legitimate  information  might  be  afforded, 
however,  he  made  public  the  full  reports 
of  the  general  board,  never  done  before, 
and  urged  the  congressional  committee  to 
call  before  it  all  officers  of  the  navy  with 
any  pretense  to  authoritative  knowledge. 

Some  snapshots  were  being  taken  on 
board  ship,  and  as  Secretary  Daniels  had 
left  his  hat  below,  he  borrowed  an  officer's 
cap.  He  made  some  laughing  remark 
about  its  effect  upon  his  appearance,  and 
this  was  twisted  into  an  attack  upon  the 
naval  uniform.  Once  he  spoke  at  a  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  meeting,  and  at  its  close  was  asked 
by  the  superintendent  to  have  his  picture 
taken  with  the  boys.  It  is  this  picture  that 
has  been  hawked  about  and  printed  in  an 


The  Case  of  Josephus  Daniels      93 

endeavor  to  prove  the  charge  that  Secre 
tary  Daniels  is  a  " demagogue."  It  is  as 
serted  that  Secretary  Daniels  deprived  the 
kin  of  an  enlisted  man  of  the  customary 
death  gratuity  should  he  lose  his  life  while 
on  liberty.  The  law  on  this  subject  was 
passed  in  1912,  and  states  specifically  that 
the  only  cause  for  withholding  payment 
shall  be  when  death  is  due  to  the  miscon 
duct  of  the  deceased.  We  bought  eight 
search-lights  from  a  German  inventor,  and 
tendered  him  a  second  order  for  twelve 
more  at  $3,960  apiece,  as  set  down  in  his 
bid.  The  manufacturers  did  not  desire  the 
contract,  requesting  a  new  award  at  $5200 
but  the  Navy  awarded  the  contract  to  the 
inventor,  who,  by  reason  of  getting  it,  will 
be  paid  $25,000  under  his  contract  with  the 
manufacturer.  This  transaction  consti 
tutes  the  base  of  the  charge  that  the  United 
States  navy  robbed  a  stranger  and  took  ad 
vantage  of  him.  Nothing  has  been  too 
mean,  too  false,  or  too  vicious  to  say  and 
circulate. 

Such  attacks,  of  course,  are  mere  blinds. 


94  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

The  real  causes  of  the  campaign  of  hatred 
against  Secretary  Daniels  are  not  to  be 
found  on  the  surface,  but  deep  down  in 
the  mud  of  human  greed.  The  powder 
trust  hates  him  because  he  is  manufactur 
ing  smokeless  powder  for  thirty-four  cents 
a  pound  as  against  the  fifty  to  eighty  cents 
that  used  to  be  paid  to  the  monopoly.  In 
1915  alone  $1,115,793  was  saved,  and  this 
year  the  capacity  is  doubled.  The  projec 
tile-makers  hate  him  because  he  cut  out 
$1,077,210  on  one  bid  alone,  and  is  asking 
Congress  for  money  to  build  his  own  plant. 
The  grafters  hate  him  because  his  econo 
mies  have  effected  a  reduction  of  fifteen- 
odd  millions  on  public  work  at  shore  sta 
tions.  The  armor-plate  monopoly  hates 
him  because  he  made  them  lop  off  $1,110,- 
084  that  was  headed  for  its  pockets,  and 
has  caused  a  bill  to  be  introduced  for  a 
government  plant  where  armor  can  be  man 
ufactured  for  $230  a  ton  as  against  the 
$440  exacted  by  the  trust.  Back  in  1900, 
Congress  appropriated  $4,000,000  for  a 
government  armor  plant  unless  contracts 


The  Case  of  Josephus  Daniels      95 

could  be  made  at  "a  reasonable  and  equi 
table  figure/'  but  Secretaries  Moody,  Mor 
ton,  Bonaparte,  and  Meyer  were  unable 
to  see  the  extortion  of  the  monopoly,  and 
paid  out  over  $76,000,000  in  excessive 
prices.  Contractors  hate  him  because  he 
established  an  inspection  system  that  ended 
the  foisting  of  wormy,  rotting  supplies 
upon  enlisted  men. 

When  Secretary  Daniels  took  office,  he 
found  an  investment  of  millions  in  navy- 
yards  going  to  waste.  Many  stations  were 
closed,  and  the  others  were  used  for  petty 
repairing,  so  as  not  to  infringe  upon  the 
profits  of  private  companies.  He  opened 
them  up  to  full  capacity  and  new  uses,  and 
to-day  every  one  is  aiding  naval  construc 
tion  and  saving  millions.  Everything  that 
is  being  manufactured  by  the  Government 
is  produced  at  from  twenty  to  sixty  per 
cent,  less  than  the  old  private  purchase 
price.  Every  dollar  saved  has  been  an 
addition  to  the  hate  felt  for  Josephus  Dan 
iels,  but  since  these  thwarted  traffickers  do 
not  dare  to  come  out  in  the  open  they  make 


96  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

their  appeal  to  the  laughter  of  fools  by 
"grape-juice"  witticisms  and  a  multitude 
of  silly  lies. 

Another  source  of  bitter  opposition 
springs  from  Mr.  Daniels 's  efforts  to  de 
mocratize  the  navy.  Through  the  years  a 
certain  aristocratic  pretension,  as  amaz 
ing  as  it  is  alarming,  has  been  permitted 
to  grow,  fixing  a  barrier  between  officers 
and  men  as  definite  and  insurmountable  as 
the  barrier  between  the  peasantry  and  no 
bility  of  Europe.  Two  American  boys, 
for  instance,  may  decide  upon  a  naval 
career;  one,  possessing  the  necessary  in 
fluence,  receives  an  appointment  to  An 
napolis,  while  the  other,  lacking  influence, 
signs  enlistment-papers.  Straightway  a 
social  gulf  yawns  between  them,  even 
though  sons  of  the  same  father,  Annapolis 
converting  the  one  into  a  superior  being, 
enlistment  dooming  the  other  to  inferior 
ity.  It  was  this  undemocratic,  un-Ameri 
can  order  of  things  that  Josephus  Daniels 
set  out  to  change,  and  the  naval  aristoc 
racy,  lacking  the  courage  to  fight  openly, 


The  Case  of  Josephus  Daniels       97 

has  joined  the  war-triffickers  in  the  circula 
tion  of  those  vague  charges  that  Daniels 
has  " demoralized  the  navy,"  and  "let  it 
run  down."  What  are  the  facts  in  the 
case? 

A  first  radical  step  made  by  Mr.  Daniels 
was  the  establishment  of  a  school  on  each 
ship  in  order  that  the  enlisted  men  might 
have  an  opportunity  for  academic  and  tech 
nical  education.  His  second  step  consisted 
in  gaining  the  right  to  appoint  fifteen  en 
listed  men  to  Annapolis  every  year,  with 
the  understanding,  of  course,  that  they  pass 
the  required  examinations.  He  asked  for 
twenty-five,  but  Senator  Weeks  of  Massa 
chusetts,  himself  a  graduate  of  Annapolis, 
succeeded  in  beating  the  number  down. 

In  1914,  with  only  a  few  months  to  pre 
pare,  five  enlisted  men  qualified;  in  1915 
there  were  eight,  and  this  year  twenty- 
three  passed  the  examinations.  It  may  be 
seen  from  this  how  much  of  American  abil 
ity  and  American  aspiration  has  been  re 
pressed  by  the  artistocratic  prejudices  of 
the  past.  As  for  the  "demoralizing"  ef- 


98  Wilson  and  the  Issues 

f ects  worked  upon  the  navy  by  the  recogni 
tion  of  education  and  ambition  as  inalien 
able  rights,  a  search  through  the  records 
discloses  these  facts: 

When  Mr.  Daniels  took  office  on  March 
1,  1913,  the  navy  was  exactly  5000  men 
short  of  the  number  allowed  by  law;  only 
fifty-two  per  cent,  of  the  men  discharged 
in  good  standing  were  reenlisting;  during 
the  four  years  of  the  Taft  administration 
there  were  10,360  desertions ;  there  was  an 
average  of  1800  men  in  prison,,  and 
throughout  the  service  was  sullenness  and 
unrest. 

As  a  result  of  the  Daniels  reforms,  6365 
enlistments  were  gained,  and  for  the  first 
time  in  history  the  navy  had  a  waiting-list ; 
eighty-five  per  cent,  of  discharges  reen- 
listed  instead  of  fifty-two  per  cent.;  the 
number  of  prisoners  dropped  from  eighteen 
hundred  to  seven  hundred,  permitting  the 
restoration  of  two  prison-ships  and  two 
disciplinary  barracks  to  normal  uses,  and 
desertions  were  reduced  fifty  per  cent. 

Newspapers  and  magazines  have  devoted 


The  Case  of  JosepTius  Daniels      99 

columns  to  telling  what  anonymous  naval 
officers  think  of  Josephus  Daniels,  but 
never  one  has  given  so  much  as  a  para 
graph  to  the  opinions  of  the  more  than 
fifty  thousand  enlisted  men  that  make  the 
navy.  Yet  they  are  expressed  openly  in 
every  issue  of  "Our  Navy,"  the  monthly 
published  by  ex-sailors  and  subscribed  to 
by  every  blue-jacket.  No  subsidized  jour 
nal  this,  but  a  straight-talking,  hard-fight 
ing  magazine  that  past  administrations 
have  tried  to  crush  on  account  of  its  per 
sistent  and  unsparing  condemnation  of  in 
justices  and  abuses.  The  following  ex 
cerpts  from  its  editorial  pages,  selected  at 
random,  may  serve  to  acquaint  the  public 
with  the  ideas  and  convictions  of  the  young 
Americans  upon  whose  loyalty  the  national 
safety  largely  depends : 

Let  the  hand-picked  editors  hurl  their 
boughten  bolts.  Let  them  shout  of  "seething 
discontent"  in  the  fleet.  It  is  not  among  the 
men,  Josephus  Daniels,  you  can  take  our  word  for 
that.  You  stand  ace  high  so  far  with  the  51,500. 
Don't  let  any  of  the  moss-backs  get  you  worried 


100          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

or  tell  you  what  the  men  think.  They  doii't 
know  anything  about  the  men,  and  care  less. 
You  could  do  lots  of  little  things  you  haven't 
done,  but  you  have  done  enough  to  show  that  your 
heart  is  in  the  right  place.  There  are  some  big 
people  after  you  but  they  can't  buy  the  loyalty 
of  the  American  bluejacket.  Go  after  'em,  Sec 
retary  Daniels.  We  're  back  of  you,  51,500 
strong!  .  .  . 

Mr.  Daniels  realized  at  once  what  OUR  NAVY 
had  been  pointing  out  for  years  that  there  was 
something  radically  wrong  with  the  human  side 
of  the  Service,  and  that  this  wrong  would  have  to 
be  righted  before  we  could  hope  to  have  a  Navy 
full  up  with  self-respecting  American  citizens. 
The  trained  Naval  officers — experts — told  Mr. 
Daniels  that  this  was  nonsense — that  you  would 
have  no  trouble  handling  men  as  long  as  you  had 
plenty  of  masters-at-arms,  and  that  the  reason  the 
Navy  was  short  of  men  was  that  it  had  always 
been  that  way  and  always  would  be. 

Mr.  Daniels  replied  that  only  in  exceptional  in 
stances  had  the  Navy  been  making  good  its  prom 
ises  made  to  induce  men  to  enlist,  and  that  he 
intended  to  see  if  there  was  not  some  way  of  re 
taining  good  men  after  they  had  received  four 
years'  training.  He  toned  down  the  recruiting 
literature ;  instituted  his  system  of  regarding  the 
American  sailorman  as  a  human  being;  set  the 


The  Case  of  Josephus  Daniels    101 

sailorman  free;  almost  abolished  the  rating  of 
master-at-arms,  which  was  the  mainstay  of  other 
administrations;  and  he  has  made  an  enlistment 
in  the  Navy  the  crowning  privilege  of  the  Ameri 
can  youth. 

And  the  wisenheimers  who  said  from  the  first 
that  he  was  wrong  are  being  hard  put  to  it  to  find 
a  sizeable  brick  to  heave  at  the  genial  Secretary. 
From  the  start,  money  in  scads  was  flung  to  the 
anvil  chorus  by  certain  interested  parties  due  to 
Mr.  Daniels 's  stand  in  regard  to  certain  con 
tractors  who  had  been  looting  the  Treasury. 
And  this  anvil  chorus  was  swelled  by  the  entire 
King  Charles  the  Second  contingent  in  the  Navy, 
who  saw  in  this  man  who  did  not  wear  a  high  silk 
hat  a  possible  enemy  to  the  idea  that  The  King 
Can  Do  No  Wrong.  But  Uncle  Jo  kept  his  head, 
and  smiled,  and  worked,  and  now  he  can  show 
more  for  his  administration  than  any  other  Sec 
retary  of  the  Navy  has  ever  been  able  to  show. 

There  is  nothing  of  the  Seventeenth  Century 
or  its  methods  in  the  make-up  of  the  Hon. 
Josephus  Daniels  and  a  better  man  has  yet  to  ap 
pear  as  head  of  the  Navy. 

Let  the  wolf  pack  howl. 

Then  there  is  a  "Divine  Right"  bunch  in  the 
Service  who  have  it  in  for  Secretary  Daniels. 


102          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

But  we  are  proud  to  say  that  their  breed  is 
dwindling  and  a  few  more  Secretaries  like 
Daniels  will  scatter  them  to  the  four  winds. 

These  are  the  people  that  are  now  after  Daniels, 
getting  their  cues  and  money  from  disgruntled 
contractors  and  outraged  aristocrats.  These 
sheets  that  belly  always  before  the  fairest  wind 
are  seeking  to  discredit  with  their  silly  flap 
doodle  a  man  who  stands  head  and  shoulders 
above  all  their  kind. 

Let  all  praying  sailors  pray  with  fervency  and 
zeal  that  we  may  never  have  another  sleek,  smug, 
silk-hat  at  the  head  of  the  United  States  Navy 
who  will  be  guided  by  and  heed  the  Dark  Age 
ideas  that  came  on  down  through  the  powdered 
dandies  of  the  court  of  King  Charles  II  into  our 
own  fair  land  and  find  exponents  even  in  this  en 
lightened  age  in  newspapers  and  magazines  that 
are  shameless  enough  to  mention  the  enlisted  man 
among  their  patrons. 

The  "Army  and  Navy  Journal"  and  its  kin 
dred  sore-head,  wailing,  outraged  Tory  sheets 
may  have  their  day  again  with  snobbery  and  in 
tolerance  enthroned  as  gods  in  the  Navy  of  a  free 
and  independent  country,  but  we  believe  not. 
We  trust  that  the  American  people  will  not  per 
mit  the  undoing  of  the  good  work,  the  square 
work  and  the  just  work  which  the  Honorable 


The  Case  of  Josephus  Daniels    103 

Josephus  Daniels  is  doing  for  the  Navy  and  the 
enlisted  man. 

Although  the  first  midshipman  to  enter 
Annapolis  under  Mr.  Daniels  will  not  be 
graduated  until  1917,  he  is  blamed  for  the 
shortage  of  officers.  Here  again  facts  give 
the  lie  to  prejudice.  When  the  "country 
editor "  took  office,  he  discovered  that  the 
Republican  administration  had  not  only 
failed  to  increase  the  attendance  at  the 
Naval  Academy,  but  had  actually  permit 
ted  the  law  to  lapse  that  permitted  two  ap 
pointments  to  each  member  of  Congress. 
Secretary  Daniels  secured  an  extension  of 
the  law  at  once,  followed  this  up  by  open 
ing  the  doors  of  Annapolis  to  enlisted  men, 
and  in  1916  succeeded  in  having  the  con 
gressional  apportionment  raised  from  two 
to  three,  making  531  additional  appoint 
ments  immediately  available.  Altogether 
over  800  midshipmen  have  been  added  to 
the  scraggly  list  handed  over  to  him  by 
his  predecessor.  As  a  further  intelligent 
emergency  measure,  certain  qualified  civil- 


104          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

ians — engineers,  aviators,  and  instructors 
— have  been  assigned  to  Annapolis,  reliev 
ing  line  officers  for  military  duty. 

At  every  point  the  offenses  of  Josephus 
Daniels  have  been  the  offenses  of  honesty, 
efficiency,  and  democracy.  When  he  went 
into  office  he  found  a  system  of  aides,  each 
one  standing  as  a  buffer  between  the  secre 
tary  and  his  bureaus,  a  plan  that  resulted  in 
delay,  confusion,  red  tape,  and  a  tremen 
dous  amount  of  correspondence  carried  on 
between  men  in  adjoining  rooms.  This 
system  had  been  refused  sanction  by  Con 
gress  time  and  again,  but  despite  this 
refusal,  the  naval  clique  persisted  in  its 
retention.  Mr.  Daniels  threw  out  these 
aides,  not  only  because  they  had  no  legal 
status,  but  because  he  desired  direct  con 
tact  with  his  bureaus.  His  next  step  was 
to  select  heads  for  these  bureaus,  and  here 
again  he  offended,  for  his  selection  was 
based  entirely  upon  merit  and  not  at  all  on 
social  position.  A  volume  in  itself  would 
be  required  to  chronicle  the  economies,  ef 
ficiencies,  and  improvements  of  this  soft- 


The  Case  of  Josephus  Daniels    105 

spoken  Carolina  dynamo,  but  there  are  cer 
tain  obvious  gains  that  stand  out,  simple 
to  record,  easy  to  grasp. 

As  a  consequence  of  the  Meyer  policy 
in  behalf  of  private  profit,  a  navy-yard  in 
vestment  of  $120,000,000  was  going  to 
waste.  Secretary  Daniels  opened  up  these 
yards  not  only  to  earn  dividends,  but  for 
the  added  purposes  of  defeating  extortion 
and  providing  for  immediate  navy  needs. 
To-day  two  dreadnoughts  are  being  com 
pleted  at  the  New  York  Navy  Yard,  and 
the  keel  of  a  third  will  be  laid  immediately ; 
Mare  Island  has  been  fitted  to  build  bat 
tle-ships  as  well  as  auxiliary  craft;  Nor 
folk  and  Charleston  were  equipped  for  the 
construction  of  destroyers,  and  Puget 
Sound  and  Portsmouth  for  the  building  of 
submarines ;  at  Boston  building  ways  large 
enough  for  the  construction  of  a  ship  of 
12,000  tons  were  provided,  and  on  one  ship 
alone  enough  was  saved  to  pay  for  the  im 
provement  ;  the  Philadelphia  yard,  used  as 
a  repair  station,  though  situated  in  the 
heart  of  the  greatest  shipbuilding  district 


106          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

in  America,  was  fitted  up  for  building, 
and  already  has  a  transport  near  com 
pletion,  and  action  is  being  taken  that 
will  enable  the  Philadelphia,  Norfolk,  and 
Puget  Sound  yards  to  construct  dread 
noughts. 

In  addition,  torpedoes  are  being  manu 
factured  at  Newport  at  $1000  less  than 
private  purchase  price,  and  the  navy  has 
158  additional  torpedoes  for  every  one  hun 
dred  on  hand  in  1913 ;  mines  are  turned  out 
at  Norfolk  at  a  saving  of  $170  per  mine, 
and  the  stock  has  been  increased  244  per 
cent.;  the  capacity  of  the  powder-factory 
has  recently  been  increased  from  3,000,000 
pounds  per  annum  to  6,000,000  pounds; 
Charleston  is  making  clothing  stores  that 
are  sold  at  cost  to  the  enlisted  men;  air 
ships  are  building  at  Washington;  at 
Portsmouth  electrical  apparatus  is  being 
manufactured  at  twenty  per  cent,  less  than 
private  cost,  and  a  projectile-factory  has 
been  authorized. 

When  Mr.  Daniels  became  head  of  the 
navy,  there  was  no  aviation  station,  no  spe- 


The  Case  of  Josephus  Daniels     107 

cific  appropriation  for  aeronautics,  and 
only  a  few  inadequate  machines  huddled 
at  Annapolis.  To  remedy  these  lacks,  he 
secured  an  initial  appropriation  of  $1,000,- 
000  and  opened  the  navy-yard  at  Pensa- 
cola,  a  $7,000,OuO  investment  abandoned  by 
Meyer,  as  an  all-year  aviation-station  and 
training-school.  Forty-three  officers  and 
one  hundred  and  twenty  men  have  been 
prepared,  and  provision  made  for  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty  additional  officers  and  three 
hundred  and  fifty  additional  men.  The 
utter  failure  of  private  firms  to  deliver  or 
dered  machines  has  compelled  the  navy  to 
take  up  the  work  of  designing  and  building 
its  own  aircraft. 

The  same  condition  existed  with  regard 
to  anti-aircraft  guns,  which  have  been 
designed,  manufactured,  and  installed. 
Ships  and  submarines  were  without 
proper  radio  equipment,  and  this  had  to  be 
installed,  and  a  further  improvement,  in 
cooperation  with  the  American  Telephone 
and  Telegraph  company,  was  the  success 
ful  installation  of  long-distance  telephony, 


108          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

long-distance  telegraphy,  and  radio  tele 
phoning. 

The  submarines,  so  much  the  subject  of 
ridicule,  were  built  before  Mr.  Daniels  took 
office.  It  has  been  his  task  to  have  weak 
nesses  discovered  and  faults  remedied,  and 
as  a  result  of  the  work  of  naval  experts, 
the  submarines  now  building  and  author 
ized  will  be  second  to  none  in  the  world  in 
fitness. 

With  reference  to  target  practice,  he 
found  the  marksmanship  poor.  Such, 
however,  were  the  reforms  he  instituted 
that  in  November,  1915,  Admiral  Fletcher 
made  this  report,  "The  scores  recorded  at 
the  last  target  practice  were  higher  than 
ever  before  made  in  the  open  sea,  and  show 
not  only  an  increase  in  accuracy  of  point 
ing,  but  in  rapidity  of  fire  as  well. ' '  Over 
ninety  per  cent,  of  the  shots  at  longest 
ranges  would  have  hit  an  enemy's  ships. 

Out  of  his  own  foresight,  Secretary  Dan 
iels  evolved  the  idea  of  an  "  ocean  Platts- 
burg, ' '  which  will  provide  a  month  of  naval 
training  for  at  least  2500  men,  fitting  them 


The  Case  of  Josephus  Daniels    109 

for  admission  to  the  naval  reserve.  Also 
Bear-Admiral  Knight,  president  of  the 
War  College,  where  high  officers  of  the 
navy  are  instructed  in  strategy  and  tactics, 
offers  this  statement,  "Secretary  Daniels 
has  done  more  for  the  War  College  than 
any  of  his  predecessors. " 

And  last,  but  most  important  of  all,  per 
haps,  it  remained  for  the  "country  editor, " 
with  his  suggestion  of  the  naval  consult 
ing  board,  to  give  the  preparedness  cam 
paign  its  very  biggest  idea.  To-day,  as  a 
consequence,  30,000  of  the  country's  lead 
ing  scientists,  technicians,  and  engineers, 
under  the  leadership  of  Thomas  A.  Edi 
son,  are  giving  unselfishly  of  their  time 
to  the  great  and  necessary  work  of  mo 
bilizing  the  industrial  resources  of  the  na 
tion  and  the  creation  of  an  industrial  re 
serve.  Laughed  at  in  the  beginning  by 
every  fool  and  rascal  as  another  proof  of 
Daniels 's  rusticism,  its  real  tremendous- 
ness  is  now  realized. 

Taken  from  any  angle,  considered  from 
any  point  of  view,  whether  it  be  as  sturdy 


110          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

Democrat,  masterful  executive,  or  efficient 
administrator,  and  this  man  Josephus 
Daniels  measures  big.  If  the  attack  upon 
him,  inspired  by  criminal  greed  and 
abetted  by  venal,  conscienceless  writers,  is 
permitted  to  succeed,  then  will  the  people 
of  the  United  States  have  confessed  such 
utter  stupidity,  indifference,  and  ingrati 
tude  as  will  work  to  encourage  dishonesty 
and  inefficiency,  even  while  serving  notice 
on  all  public  servants  that  honor  and  faith 
fulness  are  offenses. 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

"AMERICA  FIRST" 

THE  Eepublican  party  shows  shrewd 
ness,  if  not  patriotism,  in  deciding  to 
base  its  entire  attack  upon  President  Wil 
son  's  foreign  policy,  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
other  issues.  Not  only  does  the  decision 
permit  the  widest  possible  appeal  to  all 
that  is  cheap,  mean,  and  truculent,  but  it 
diverts  attention  from  President  Wilson's 
domestic  policies,  a  prime  requisite  to  Ee- 
publican  success. 

Considering  the  fact  that  he  has  had  to 
work  through  Congress,  torn  by  its  parti- 
zan,  sectional,  and  personal  prejudices,  it 
is  amazing  indeed  to  mark  this  man's  rec 
ord  of  tremendous  achievement.  Con 
fronted  from  the  first  by  a  press  of  prob 
lems  handed  down  from  the  Eoosevelt  and 

Taft  administrations,  in  no  instance  has 
111 


112          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

he  evaded,  in  no  instance  ignored,  meeting 
every  exigency  with  the  same  unswerving 
faith  in  democracy  and  democratic  ideals. 

The  tariff  was  a  first  test.  Even  though 
the  Democratic  promise  of  revision  down 
ward  had  been  explicit,  the  fact  that  many 
Democratic  States  relied  heavily  upon  pro 
tected  industries  soon  evolved  a  spirit  of 
compromise  and  evasion.  Had  Woodrow 
Wilson  been  less  than  courageous,  less  than 
honest,  he  would  have  conciliated  the  pro 
tectionists  in  his  party  by  consenting  to  a 
partial  redemption  of  the  platform  pledge. 
Instead  of  that,  he  insisted  upon  complete 
compliance,  rendering  a  service  to  America 
the  value  of  which  only  historians  will  be 
able  to  compute. 

Tariff  legislation,  more  than  any  other 
one  thing,  was  the  source  of  the  corruption 
that  rotted  public  service,  and  in  the  growth 
of -the  sinister  privileges  fostered  by  the 
system  there  was  almost  sole  responsibility 
for  the  perversion  of  American  ideals. 
Woodrow  Wilson  cut  out  the  cancer,  and 
freed  the  nation  from  a  creeping  death. 


" America  First"  113 

States  that  were  rendered  parasitic  by  pub 
lic  largesse  began  to  struggle  back  to  intel 
ligent  industry.  Everywhere,  from  coast 
to  coast,  endeavor  took  on  a  wider,  more 
virile  sweep  after  being  stood  upon  its  own 
feet  and  forced  to  rely  on  its  own  resources. 

Instead  of  factories  closing,  factories 
opened,  and  at  every  point  the  gloomy 
prophecies  of  the  Roots  and  Lodges  were 
shown  to  be  stock  bugbears.  On  July  1, 
1914,  there  was  also  a  trade  balance  in 
America's  favor  just  $300,000,000  larger 
than  the  one  shown  by  the  Payne  law  the 
year  before,  and  every  day  saw  the  theories 
of  protection  offering  feebler  resistance  to 
the  facts  of  the  Underwood  law.  The  war, 
however,  returned  the  subject  to  the  prov 
ince  of  debate,  but  even  while  political 
storehouses  were  being  rummaged  for  the 
old  arguments,  President  Wilson  an 
nounced  that  he  would  include  a  tariff  com 
mission  in  the  list  of  things  to  be  done. 

Until  the  passage  of  the  Federal  Eeserve 
Act,  Wall  Street  ruled  the  United  States ; 
bankers  poured  railroads,  great  enter- 


114          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

'prises,  and  depositors'  money  into  a  ma 
gician's  hat  and  then  showed  it  empty;  a 
rigid,  inelastic  financial  system  choked 
credit,  hampered  legitimate  development, 
and  put  the  business  of  the  country  at  the 
mercy  of  panics  that  carried  wholesale  ruin 
in  their  train.  For  years-cu/rency  revision 
had  been  a  cry  of  the  people,  and  for  years 
the  Eepublican  party  had  refused  to  rem 
edy  the  indefensible  conditions.  Making 
the  Federal  Eeserve  bill  an  administration 
measure,  and  disregarding  the  advice  of 
his  party  leaders,  President  Wilson  drove 
it  through  the  special  session  of  1913  in  the 
face  of  bitter  opposition  and  misunder 
standing.  Senator  Elihu  Boot,  leading  the 
Republican  opposition,  branded  the  act  as 
a  " financial  heresy"  that  would  entail  dis 
aster  utter  and  absolute,  and  both  in  Sen 
ate  and  House  his  following  voted  solidly 
against  the  bill. 

To-day  the  legislation  is  seen  as  a  rod 
of  Moses.  By  measuring  the  ruin  wrought 
by  the  panics  of  1903  and  1907,  when  con 
ditions  were  normal,  there  may  be  gained 


"America  First"  115 

some  approximation  of  the  enormity  of 
the  panic  that  would  have  occurred  in  1914 
but  for  the  Federal  Eeserve  Act.  Under 
its  provisions,  $386,000,000  of  emergency 
currency  was  issued  during  the  gloomy 
August  of  that  year,  and  not  a  bank  closed 
its  doors,  not  a  business  went  to  the  wall. 
Credit  has  been  released  from  its  long  im 
prisonment,  government  moneys  provided 
for  the  movement  of  crops,  and  for  the  first 
time  in  history  pawnbroking  and  usury 
have  been  divorced  from  banking. 

In  their  fight  against  Shylockism  may  be 
found  the  reason  why  Secretary  McAdoo 
and  Comptroller  John  Skelton  Williams  are 
so  hated.     Their  investigations  uncovered 
the  scandal  that  2743  national  banks  outV 
of  a  total  of  7613  were  guilty  of  grossest  I 
usury,  charging  interest  rates  that  ran  all  I 
the  way  from  10  per  cent,  to  2400  per  cent.  / 
Not  only  have  they  stopped  these  usurious 
practices,  but  by  virtue  of  powers   con 
ferred  by  the  Federal  Keserve  Act  they 
have  forced  many  bank  officials  to  restore 
misappropriated  thousands. 


116          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

During  the  first  year's  operation  of  the 
act  the  deposits  of  the  national  banks  in 
creased  $2,081,530,164,  and  loans  and  dis 
counts  increased  $917,450,502,  while  sur 
plus  reserves  exceeded  by  $592,000,000  the 
greatest  surplus  reserves  ever  held  before. 
In  August,  1914,  the  United  States  owed 
Europe  $350,000,000  of  floating  indebted 
ness  maturing  prior  te  January  1,  1915. 
Not  only  has  this  debt  been  wiped  out,  but 
we  have  taken  back  from  Europe  about 
one  thousand  million  dollars'  worth  of 
American  securities  held  there  for  invest 
ment. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  Mr.  Hughes  and 
the  Kepublicans  prefer  to  discuss  Belgium 
rather  than  the  Federal  Eeserve  Act,  which 
has  lifted  the  shadow  of  disaster  from  a 
nation  ? 

The  Federal  Trade  Commission  is  the 
Wilson  answer  to  unfair  competition  and 
uncurbed  monopoly.  It  bears  the  same  re 
lation  to  industry  that  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission  bears  to  railroads, 
and  as  its  operation  grows  in  certainty, 


" America  First3'  117 

lawless  greed  will  be  subjected  to  increas 
ing  restraints  and  punishments.  Its  pres 
ent  inquiry  into  the  soaring  prices  of 
anthracite,  for  instance,  explains  why  the 
coal  lords  are  denouncing  Mr.  Wilson  as  a 
menace,  and  urging  the  election  of  Mr. 
Hughes. 

In  a  final  desperate  effort  to  save  ancient 
privileges  to  the  banking  interests,  the  Ke- 
publican  platform  squarely  attacked  the 
principle  of  rural  credits.  On  the  heels  of 
the  attack,  President  Wilson  succeeded  in 
pushing  the  legislation  through  Congress, 
and  justice  to  the  farmers  of  the  nation  is 
now  embodied  in  law.  By  putting  low- 
rate,  long-time  loans  at  the  disposal  of 
those  who  desire  to  buy  land,  purchase 
equipment,  or  make  improvements,  the 
farming  population  is  released  from  the 
grip  of  usurers  and  restored  to  their  old 
hope  and  ambition. 

The  Clayton  Anti-Trust  _]Uaw  has  well 
been  termed  the  Magna  Charta  of  labor. 
It  secures  to  the  working-man  the  right  of 
voluntary  association  for  his  protection 


118         Wilson  and  the  Issues 

and  welfare;  it  brought  an  end  to  the  il 
legal  and  unwarranted  issuance  of  writs 
of  injunction;  it  declared  in  effect  that 
human  labor  was  no  longer  to  be  regarded 
as  a  commodity,  and  set  down  the  rule  that 
no  judge  should  henceforth  have  the  right 
to  send  men  to  jail  for  constructive  con 
tempt  without  a  jury  trial  or  representa 
tion  by  counsel. 

With  increasing  force,  industry  has 
rested  upon  the  backs  of  two  million  little 
children,  and  neither  during  the  adminis 
trations  of  Mr.  Taft  nor  of  Mr.  Koosevelt 
was  any  courageous  effort  made  to  end  an 
evil,  shocking  condition.  President  Wil 
son  insisted  upon  the  introduction  of  a  bill 
that  would  release  the  boys  and  girls  of 
America  from  the  steel  jaws  of  the  indus 
trial  machine,  and  when  political  chicanery 
bade  fair  to  prevent  its  passage,  he  went 
personally  to  the  Capitol,  and  informed 
the  Democratic  leaders  that  the  dictates  of 

|  humanity  must  be  obeyed.     The  Child-La 
bor   Law,   rescuing  two   million   children 

:  from  the  destructive  processes  of  prema- 


" America  First"  119 

ture  toil,  is  in  itself  a  greater  preparedness 
measure  than  even  the  naval  bill. 

Out  of  regard  for  the  health  of  the 
worker,  eight-hour-day  laws  were  passed,  \ 
applicable  to  all  work  done  by  the  Govern-  \ 
ment  as  well  as  for  all  work  done  for  the 
Government;  out  of  regard  for  the  rights 
of  the  worker,  a  department  of  laboj:  was 
created.  Merely  as  an  example  of  the 
splendid  activities  thus  released,  the  em 
ployment  bureau  has  found  jobs  for  more 
than  70,000  toilers,  and  secured  over 
$7,000,000  in  earnings  for  them. 

The  Workmen  ?_s__Compensation  Jxill 
rounds  out  a  remarkable  record  of  humane 
achievement,  and  to  complete  the  social 
justice  program  decided  upon  by  President 
Wilson,  the  St.  Louis  convention  pledged 
the  Democratic  party  to  these  principles 
of  action: 

A  minimum-wage  standard  for  working- 
women;  the  prohibition  of  night  work  for 
women,  and  the  eight-hour  day  for  women 
and  young  persons ;  one  day  of  rest  in  seven 
for  all  wage-earners;  the  abolition  of  the 


120         Wilson  and  the  Issues 

convict-labor  contract  system,  substituting 
prison  production  for  government  con 
sumption,  and  applying  the  earnings  of 
inmates  to  the  support  of  their  families; 
safety  and  sanitation  measures. 

Of  no  less  importance  to  the  great  work 
ing-mass  is  the  Wilson  insistence  that  pre 
paredness  shall  be  paid  for  by  a  tax 
}j  on  incomes,  inheritances,  and  munition^ 
From  these  sources  $300,000,000  will  b 
raised  that  would  otherwise  have  been  col, 
lected  by  taxes  on  things  that  the  poor 

consume. 

^ 

As  for  conservation  of  the  natural  ra(r 
sources,  the  Lane  measures  are  the  last 
wrord  in  sane  protection  of  the  people's 
domain,  while  in  Alaska  a  successful  ex 
periment  in  government  operation  is  be 
ing  carried  on.  For  eight  years  a  Bepub- 
lican  administration  had  kept  the  wealth  of 
Alaska  imprisoned.  Upon  recommenda 
tion  of  Woodrow  Wilson,  $43,000,000  was 
appropriated  for  the  building  of  a  railroad, 
the  operation  of  which  has  made  for  de 
velopment  in  the  popular  interest. 


"America  First3'  121 

Aside  from  the  extension  of  the  parcels 
post,  the  Wilson  administration  has  set 
aside  $85,000,000  with  which  to  aid  the  sev 
eral  States  in  the  construction  of  highways. 
Not  alone  is  this  an  aid  to  commerce  and 
a  development  of  agriculture,  but  it  opens 
up  new  territory  to  rural  delivery,  and  in 
it '  essence  is  an  important  feature  of  the 

eparedness  program. 

At  every  point  Woodrow  Wilson  has 
jtood  like  iron  against  the  oligarchic  influ 
ences  that  controlled  the  Eepublican  party. 
Tust  as  his  attitude  toward  the  Chinese 
>an  served  notice  on  high  finance  that  the 
navy  of  the  United  States  could  not  be  used 
as  a  collection  agency,  and  just  as  his  ap 
pointment  of  Brandeis  and  Clarke  declared 
that  the  Supreme  Court  was  in  no  sense 
the  personal  property  of  the  privileged  in 
terests,  so  did  his  stand  in  the  Panama 
Canal  tolls  controversy  prove  his  courage 
and  his  democracy.  It  is  true  enough  that 
there  were  no  if s  in  that  clause  in  the  Hay- 
Pauncefote  treaty  which  said  that  "the 
canal  shall  be  free  and  open  to  vessels  of 


122          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

commerce  and  of  war  of  all  nations  observ 
ing  these  rules  on  terms  of  absolute  equal 
ity."  Language  could  not  be  more  ex 
plicit. 

The  forces  of  privilege,  however,  had  the 
same  vital  interests  in  compelling  the  vio 
lation  of  this  treaty  as  in  securing  the 
recognition  of  Huerta,  for  in  toll  exemp 
tions  the  coastwise  shipping  monopoly  saw 
chance  to  obtain  the  subsidies  denied  by  a 
fixed  public  policy. 

The  charge  was  made  openly  that  Presi 
dent  Wilson  had  entered  into  some  secret 
and  humiliating  bargain  with  Great  Brit 
ain;  he  was  pictured  in  innumerable  car 
toons  as  a  flunky  to  George  V,  and  racial 
bigotries  were  played  upon  unceasingly  in 
order  that  the  waters  of  calm  discussion 
might  be  muddied  by  hatred  and  prejudice. 

Had  Woodrow  Wilson  been  "practical," 
he  would  have  kept  silent,  permitting  the 
Taft  legislation  to  stand,  or,  seeing  the 
storm  of  seemingly  adverse  sentiment, 
backed  out  of  his  dilemma  with  a  graceful 
and  explanatory  wave  of  the  hand  in  the 


"America  First"  123 

direction   of   the   "rugged   democracy   of 
America. ' ' 

Of  a  certainty  there  was  justification  for 
such  a  course  in  precedent.  Only  a  few 
years  before,  President  Eoosevelt,  to  use 
his  own  words,  "took  the  canal  zone  and 
let  Congress  debate."  The  desires  of  the 
chattel-slavery  interests  played  large  part 
in  the  Mexican  war  of  1846,  our  Indian 
treaties  have  been  violated  on  the  score  of 
material  interest,  expediency  has  domi 
nated  our  attitude  to  the  Filipinos,  and 
America's  promise  to  Cuba  was  evaded  by 
the  addition  of  the  Platt  amendment  to  the 
Cuban  constitution. 

Woodrow  Wilson,  however,  went  back  to  \ 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  for  his 
precedent,  spanning  the  years  of  material 
istic  trick  and  compromise,  and  when  he 
spoke  these  words  to  Congress,  it  was  as 
though  Patrick  Henry  and  Thomas  Jeffer 
son  lived  again: 

We  consented  to  the  treaty;  its  language  we 
accepted  if  we  did  not  originate  it;  and  we  are 
too  big,  too  powerful,  too  self-respecting  a  nation 


124          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

to  interpret  with  a  too  strained  or  refined  reading 
the  words  of  our  own  promises  just  because  we 
have  power  enough  to  give  us  leave  to  read  them 
as  we  please.  The  large  thing  to  do  is  the  only 
thing  we  can  afford  to  do,  a  voluntary  withdrawal 
from  a  position  everywhere  questioned  and  mis 
understood.  We  ought  to  reverse  our  action 
without  raising  the  question  whether  we  were 
right  or  wrong,  and  so  deserve  once  more  our 
reputation  for  generosity,  and  for  the  redemption 
of  every  obligation  without  quibble  or  hesi 
tation. 

It  was  the  first  test  of  strength  between 
an  awakened  idealism  and  an  intrenched 
materialism.  Who  can  have  forgotten 
how,  in  the  opening  days  of  the  debate, 
servants  of  privilege  leaped  at  what  seemed 
fair  opportunity  to  work  the  President's 
defeat  and  humiliation? 

Too  much  significance  cannot  be  at 
tached  to  this  victory.  The  issue  was 
clean-cut  between  money  and  justice,  be 
tween  practicality  and  principles,  between 
the  arrogant  privileged  interests  and  the 
unorganized  mass.  In  the  utter  rout  of 
the  profit-mongers  it  may  be  seen  how  lit- 


" America  First"  125 

tie  they  expressed  or  represented  the  deep, 
underlying  passions  of  America. 

With  regard  to  the  seamen  of  America, 
for  fifteen  years  Andrew  Furuseth  haunted 
Congress  in  the  effort  to  secure  legislation 
that  would  put  an  end  to  slavery,  oppres 
sion,  and  actual  degradation.  Not  until 
Woodrow  Wilson  came  into  office  did  he 
meet  with  a  President  of  sufficient  strength 
and  independence  to  put  humanity  above 
profits.  What  Lincoln's  Emancipation 
Proclamation  was  to  eight  million  bond 
men,  the  Wilson  Seamen's  Act  is  to  those 
men  who  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  for 
its  provisions  not  only  lift  American  sail 
ors  from  their  depths,  but  likewise  the 
sailors  of  every  other  nationality. 

The  one  Wilson  defeat,  brought  about  by 
a  Eepublican  filibusterer,  was  the  shipping 
bill  of  1914.  To-day  that  defeat  is  seen  to 
have  been  a  crime  against  the  people  of  the 
United  States.  The  extortionate  ocean- 
freight  rates  paid  by  helpless  shippers  and 
producers  in  the  last  twelve  months  have 
more  than  trebled  the  $40,000,000  that  was 


126          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

asked  to  be  spent  by  the  Government  on 
merchant  vessels.  In  actual  value  alone 
the  ships  would  "have  doubled.  Aside  from 
these  determinable  losses,  there  are  the  in 
calculable  losses  sustained  through  inabil 
ity  to  ship  at  all.  Lack  of  ships,  as  well  as 
prohibitory  rates,  have  operated  to  keep 
the  United  States  from  taking  advantage 
of  the  extraordinary  demand  for  coal,  lum 
ber,  and  supplies  of  all  kinds  in  Europe 
and  South  America.  Senators  Gallinger 
and  Lodge  perpetuated  the  monopoly  of  the 
shipping  trust,  but  in  so  doing  they  lost 
millions  to  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
The  Wilson  democracy  of  1914,  the  Ke- 
publican  subsidy  hope  of  1914,  were  both 
transferred  to  1916,  but  with  the  change 
that  the  shipping  bill  was  now  a  vital  part 
of  the  preparedness  plan.  Out  of  the  navy 
department  came  a  demand  for  a  merchant- 
marine  auxiliary.  Naval  authorities,  back 
ing  the  demand,  pointed  out  that  the  strong 
est  fleet  is  crippled  to  weakness  unless  pos 
sessed  of  craft  to  bear  its  coal,  provisions, 
and  supplies,  and  gave  facts  to  prove  the 


" America  First33  127 

folly  of  trusting  to  purchase  or  charter  to 
supply  such  craft  in  a  time  of  crisis. 

The  declaration  of  war  against  Spain  in 
1898  found  the  navy  without  auxiliary 
craft,  and  as  a  consequence,  exorbitant 
amounts  had  to  be  paid  for  fit  and  unfit  ves 
sels.  At  the  close  of  the  war  these  vessels, 
for  which  the  Government  paid  $18,000,000, 
were  sold  as  junk  at  a  loss  of  eighty  per 
cent. 

A  merchant-marine  naval  auxiliary  must 
be  had.  What,  then,  when  the  ships  are 
built?  Shall  they  lie  idle  and  rot  in  our 
harbors?  The  Wilson  bill  disputes  this 
absurdity  by  wise  provision  that  the  auxil 
iary  craft  shall  serve  the  needs  of  Ameri 
can  commerce  in  times  of  peace.  For  fifty 
years  the  United  States  has  waited  for  pri 
vate  capital  to  prove  an  American  mer 
chant  marine,  and  for  an  equal  time  our 
foreign  trade  has  dwindled.  It  has  re 
mained  for  the  Wilson  administration  to 
meet  these  just  demands  of  commerce,  even 
while  insuring  an  efficient  naval  auxiliary 
and  an  essential  naval  reserve  personnel. 


I   128/     Wilson  and  the  Issues 

At  every  point  in  the  Wilson  record 
there  is  evidence  of  the  idealist  in  action. 
Few  Presidents  have  ever  joined  vision  and 
leadership  in  such  high  degree,  and  cer 
tainly  not  one  has  equaled  him  in  achieve 
ment.  Welding  a  party  of  opposition  into 
a  great  constructive  force,  he  has  put  foun 
dations  under  honest  business,  defeated 
cruelty  and  injustice,  thrown  the  mantle  of 
protection  over  the  mother  and  the  child, 
and  recovered  the  courage,  the  pride,  and 
the  creative  genius  of  the  American  people. 
Never  was  choice  so  plain.  It  is  between 
a  record  and  mere  claims;  between  a 
proved  democrat  and  the  captains  who 
/  served  under  Hanna ;  between  equal  justice 
[  and  special  privilege;  between  Woodrow 
I  Wilson,  who  expresses  "America  First " 
in  law  and  action,  and  those  who  cry 
"  America  First "  to  divert  attention  from 
their  usuries,  oppressions,  and  rapacities. 


'J 


CHAPTEE  IX 


'ANYTHING  TO  BEAT  WILSON " 


THE  politics  of  America  have  reached 
low  levels  at  various  times,  but  it  re 
mained  for  the  betrayal  of  the  Progressive 
cause  to  plumb  new  depths  of  baseness. 
More  nearly  than  any  other  like  occurrence 
the  wretched  business  epitomizes  the  sor- 
didness,  the  selfishness,  and  the  dishonesty 
that  have  operated  to  hamper  the  develop 
ment  of  democracy. 

While  the  Progressive  party  had  its 
source  in  Eepublican  schism,  it  ceased  al 
most  instantly  to  be  factional,  for  to  its 
banners  rallied  thousands  of  earnest,  free- 
thinking  men  and  women  sick  and  tired  of 
the  older  organizations,  their  hypocrisies 
and  their  failures.  A  great  and  noble  plat 
form,  establishing  submerged  ideals  as 
fighting  principles,  lifted  the  movement 

129 


130         Wilson  and  the  Issues 

high  above  the  vulgarities  of  partizanship, 
and  gave  it  the  fervor  of  a  crusade. 

Not  even  defeat  had  power  to  chill  en 
thusiasm  or  to  weaken  the  splendid  deter 
mination  that  had  for  its  object  the  expres 
sion  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in 
terms  of  law  and  governmental  action. 
They  had  their  faith  and  hope  and  courage 
still,  and  still  did  they  have  their  leader. 
Speaking  on  October  3,  1913,  at  a  Progres 
sive  gathering,  Mr.  Eoosevelt  said : 

Men  and  women,  I  would  continue  the  fight 
even  if  I  stood  entirely  alone.  I  shall  continue  it 
with  a  glad  and  proud  heart  because  it  is  made 
in  your  company. 

Win  or  lose,  whatever  the  outcome,  I  am  with 
you,  and  I  am  for  this  cause  to  fight  to  the  end. 
We  are  dedicated  in  this  great  war  for  righteous.- 
ness,  and  while  life  lasts  we  cannot  and  we  will 
not  abandon  it. 

"The  men  who  believe  that  we  will  ever 
betray  these  ideals  or  abandon  the  task  to 
which  we  have  set  ourselves  do  not  know 
us  and  cannot  ever  guess  at  the  faith  that 
inspires  us. 


"Anything  to  Beat  Wilson3'    131 

' i  This  movement  will  never  go  back,  and 
whatever  may  betide  in  the  future,  of  one 
thing  the  disciples  of  an  easy  opportunism 
may  rest  assured — I  will  never  abandon 
the  principles  to  which  we  Progressives 
have  pledged  ourselves,  and  I  will  never 
abandon  the  men  and  women  who  drew 
around  me  to  battle  for  these  principles." 

In  1914,  desertions  occurred.  Self-seek 
ing  Eepublicans,  who  had  joined  the  new 
party  as  a  gamble,  having  realized  the 
hopelessness  of  the  Taft  candidacy,  re 
turned  to  their  old  allegiance,  and  in  the 
state  of  New  York  especially,  even  tried 
to  carry  the  Progressive  organization  back 
with  them.  Mr.  Koosevelt  stood  firm,  how 
ever,  and  Mr.  George  W.  Perkins  expressed 
the  bitter  indignation  of  the  rank  and  file 
in  these  words: 

"The  idea  of  trying  to  deliver  voters 
en  masse  to  another  party  seemed  so  ut 
terly  out  of  order  and  unfair,  and  seemed 
to  be  striking  so  at  the  very  heart  of  our 
whole  organization  that  after  careful  con 
sideration  and  consultation  with  a  number 


132         Wilson  and  the  Issues 

of  our  friends,  I  decided  to  go  to  the  Buf 
falo  meeting,  which  was  by  far  the  largest 
one,  and  protest,  in  the  name  of  the  Na 
tional  organization,  against  any  such  ac 
tion. 

"If  there  had  been  during  this  year  or 
any  time  since  1912  any  indication  that  the 
owners  of  the  Eepublican  party  had  in 
the  slightest  degree  recognized  their  errors 
and  reactionary  inclinations,  then  the  ques 
tion  of  returning  to  that  party  might  be  a 
debatable  one,  but  every  one  of  us  knows 
that  they  have  shown  no  such  inclination, 
and  on  the  contrary,  wherever  they  have 
had  a  chance,  have  been  more  reactionary 
than  ever. 

"  Indeed  the  very  fact  of  our  returning 
new,  with  all  the  things  that  the  Eepublican 
party  has  done  since  1912,  would  have  to 
be  constructed  as  indorsing  all  these  ac 
tions,  and  as  a  complete  surrender  on  our 
part  and  an  acknowledgment  that  we  were 
wrong  in  1912,  and  would  knuckle  under 
and  obey  the  men  whom  up  to  date  we  have 
denounced. ' ' 


"Anything  to  Beat  Wilson"     133 

The  1916  call  for  a  second  national  con 
vention  met  with  a  loyal  response*,  and 
there  was  a  certain  pathetic  Peter  the  Her 
mit  quality  about  the  pilgrimage  to  Chi 
cago.  The  majority  of  the  delegates,  poor 
in  purse,  borrowed  and  pawned,  pinched 
and  scraped,  in  order  to  attend,  and  as  in 
1912,  the  gathering  was  marked  by  an  ex 
altation  almost  religious  in  its  manifesta 
tions.  As  far  as  the  rank  and  file  were 
concerned,  the  purposes  of  the  convention 
were  simple  and  crystal  clear.  Eoosevelt, 
as  much  as  ever  the  idol,  was  to  be  nom- 
dnated  by  acclamation,  the  principles  of 
1912  were  to  be  reaffirmed,  and  the  Eepub- 
lican  party  left  to  do  as  it  chose  in  the  face 
of  such  decisive  action. 

A  first  shock  was  the  announcement  of 
a  policy  of  delay.  A  second  blow  was  the 
spirit  of  compromise  that  possessed  the 
leaders,  eventuating  in  an  actual  invitation 
to  the  Eepublican  organization  for  a 
"friendly  conference"  with  a  view  to  the 
"  adjustment  of  .differences. "  The  days 
during  which  the  Progressive  conferrees 


134          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

crooked  their  knees  to  such  hated  foes  as 
Eeed  Smoot,  Murray  Crane,  and  Nicholas 
Murray  Butler  were  days  of  mortal  sick 
ness  for  the  men  and  women  to  whom 
Progressivism  was  in  no  sense  political, 
but  deeply  spiritual.  A  third  sledge  swing 
at  the  foundations  of  faith  was  the  reading 
of  a  platform  that  might  well  have  been 
written  by  " Uncle  Joe"  Cannon,  so  utterly 
did  it  ignore  the  fighting  principles  of  1912, 
so  completely  was  it  a  thing  of  concession 
and  compromise. 

These  bitternesses,  however,  were  as 
nothing  to  the  misery  that  gripped  the  con 
vention  when  Mr.  Boosevelt's  suggestion 
of  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  as  a  compromise 
candidate  gave  the  first  intimation  of  deser 
tion.  The  purposelessness  of  the  insult, 
its  stark  brutality,  stunned  and  sickened. 
Out  of  the  shock,  however,  came  a  fierce 
anger  that  beat  down  the  parliamentary 
barriers  of  the  tricksters,  and  in  one  great 
triumphant  rush  the  convention  put  an  end 
to  compromise  by  the  nomination  of  Eoose- 
velt  and  Parker. /It  was  what  they  had 


"Anything  to  Beat  Wilson"     135 

gathered  for;  leaders  had  given  them  the 
most  solemn  assurances  that  Mr.  Eoose- 
velt  would  accept ;  whatever  pain  at  disap 
pointment  and  indecision  may  have  been 
in  their  hearts,  not  a  mind  was  stained  by 
doubt  as  to  the  answer  of  their  hero  with 
respect  to  the  action  taken.  His  declina 
tion  did  more  than  murder  a  party;  it 
crushed  the  faith  of  thousands. 

In  the  lightning  flash  of  that  moment 
many  things  stood  clear.  It  was  seen  that 
just  as  the  compelling  Eoosevelt  motive  in 
1912  had  been  revenge  upon  Mr.  Taft,  so 
was  the  compelling  Eoosevelt  motive  of 
1916  a  blind  and  insensate  hatred  of  Mr. 
Wilson.  Never  at  any  time  did  he  have 
comprehension  of,  or  sympathy  with,  the 
ideals  of  the  Progressive  party,  regarding 
it  solely  as  a  hand-forged  weapon  with 
which  to  fight  his  enemies  and  to  advance 
his  own  interests. 

Out  of  the  tragedy,  however,  may  come 
a  great  and  lasting  good.  People  have 
learned  the  lesson  that  the  safety  of  demo 
cratic  institutions  is  best  conserved  by  de- 


136         Wilson  and  the  Issues 

votion  to  principles  rather  than  devotion 
to  personalities,  and  there  is  also  reason 
to  believe  that  this  final  exposure  of  invin 
cible  selfishness  will  result  in  the  elimina 
tion  of  a  destructive,  disintegrative  force. 
With  an  effect  of  spontaneity  that  con 
cealed  cold-blooded  premeditation,  a  gift 
of  acting  democratically  that  covered  the 
set  autocratic  habit  of  his  mental  processes, 
a  colossal  egotism  that  passed  for  force,  a 
scatter-mindedness  that  looked  like  broad- 
mindedness,  and  a  passionate  protestation 
that  obscured  his  lack  of  performance, 
Theodore  Koosevelt  has  been  an  Old  Man 
of  the  Sea  on  the  back  of  the  nation. 

The  whole  life  of  the  man  made  it  clear 
that  he  would  act  in  a  crisis  just  as  he  did 
act  with  reference  to  the  Progressive  party. 
During  the  seven  years  that  he  sat  in  the 
Presidential  chair,  the  number  of  monopo 
listic  combinations  of  business  increased 
from  149  to  1020,  during  which  time  he  re 
fused  steadfastly  to  give  the  Sherman 
Anti-Trust  Law  the  effect  that  was  in 
tended;  the  Steel  Trust,  the  Sugar  Trust 


"Anything  to  Beat  Wilson33     137 

and  the  Harvester  Trust  were  protected 
from  prosecution  by  his  hand;  he  said  no 
word  about  a  tariff  that  was  robbing  the 
great  bulk  of  people ;  it  was  in  open  defiance 
of  law  that  he  gave  the  Steel  Trust  per 
mission  to  absorb  the  Tennessee  Iron  and 
Coal  Company ;  he  backed  the  iron  despot 
ism  of  Aldrich  and  Cannon  in  their  fight 
against  the  Insurgents;  and  in  1904,  as  a 
candidate,  he  appointed  as  his  campaign 
manager  George  B.  Cortelyou,  who,  as  sec 
retary  of  commerce  and  labor,  had  been 
investigating  corporations. 

Choosing  Taft  as  his  successor  because 
Taft  bore  closest  resemblance  to  putty,  he 
forced  him  upon  the  party  by  the  most  un 
scrupulous  use  of  power  and  patronage. 
Conceiving  the  idea  of  a  Presidential  third 
term,  he  spared  no  effort  to  destroy  and 
discredit  the  Taft  administration,  and  when 
defeated  in  1912  by  the  "steam  roller " 
that  was  of  his  own  creation,  he  set  him 
self  to  the  task  of  revenge. 

Nothing  so  discloses  the  man's  utter  lack 
of  iron  convictions  as  his  attitude  with 


138          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

regard  to  the  platform  that  the  Progres 
sives  declared  in  1912.  Not  a  single  prin 
ciple  in  the  document  but  had  received  his 
tireless  enmity  as  President,  but  under  the 
urge  of  ambition  and  hate,  almost  over 
night  he  discovered  his  passionate  belief  in 
the  initiative,  referendum,  recall,  equal 
suffrage,  and  the  whole  program  of  state 
socialism. 

Had  his  soul  possessed  one  particle  of 
sincerity  or  had  he  stirred  to  the  slightest 
capacity  for  disinterested  service,  he  would 
have  been  lifted  to  higher,  finer  levels  by 
the  love  and  devotion  of  the  thousands  that 
followed  him.  *^But  not  for  a  moment  was 
he  shaken  out  of  his  cold-blooded  oppor 
tunism  and  arrogant  autocracy.  His  one 
thought  in  defeat  was  to  divert  the  flood  of 
democratic  faith  into  the  mean,  narrow 
channels  of  self-advancement.  Out  of  a 
crusade  he  built  up  a  political  machine,  sub 
stituting  personal  service  for  social  serv 
ice,  personal  loyalty  for  social  loyalty, 
striving  with  all  his  might  to  transform  a 
wonderful  forward  movement  into  an  air- 


"Anything  to  Beat  Wilson"     139 

tight  corporation  for  his  own  selfish  ends. 

It  was  never  his  intention  to  run  only 
on  the  Progressive  ticket.  The  Gary  din 
ner,  at  which  he  broke  bread  with  the  men 
that  he  had  branded  as  malefactors,  was  an 
open  announcement  of  his  intention  to  re 
turn  to  the  Eepublican  party.  The  seem 
ingly  insane  denunciation  of  Wilson  was 
calculated  cunning,  just  as  there  was  pre 
meditation  in  his  failure  to  mention  social 
justice  in  a  single  speech  or  article/ 
Taken  together,  they  signified  his  willing 
ness  to  serve  and  his  recantation  of  "  luna 
tic  heresies. " 

Only  those  blinded  by  hero-worship 
could  have  failed  to  see  that  the  decision 
to  hold  the  Progressive  convention  at  the 
same  time  and  in  the  same  city  as  the  Re 
publican  convention  was  in  itself  an  ad 
mission  of.  dicker  and  barter.  Treachery 
and  betrayal  were  no  sudden  resolves,  but 
the  bitter  fruit  of  careful  planning.  With 
out  doubt  Mr.  Eoosevelt  expected  to  be 
made  the  Eepublican  nominee.  Equally 
without  doubt  the  high  and  secret  powers 


140         Wilson  and  the  Issues 

were  always  as  iron  in  their  grim  deter 
mination  to  trick  and  destroy  himp  It  was 
not  that  they  feared  his  actions  if  restored 
to  power,  but  that  they  hated  him  for  his 
insolences,  his  weathercock  variability,  and 
his  deceits. 

Boot  was  their  first  choice,  but  when  the 
hopelessness  of  that  candidacy  became  ap 
parent,  they  turned  to  Hughes.  Why  not? 
By  his  opposition  to  an  income  tax,  his 
unchanging  support  of  a  high  tariff,  his 
vetoes  of  all  bills  designed  to  wring  justice 
from  the  railroads,  and  his  expressed  belief 
in  the  righteousness  of  the  established  or 
der,  Charles  Evans  Hughes  had  proved  his 
right  to  be  considered  ' '  safe. ' '  The  things 
that  he  had  fought — bosses,  graft,  corrup 
tion — were  always  symptoms,  never  causes. 

The  sudden  interest  of  Hitchcock,  driver 
of  the  Eepublican  steam  roller  in  1912,  in 
the  candidacy  of  Mr.  Hughes  had  a  vast 
significance  for  all  who  cared  to  observe. 
Nor  was  the  quick  growth  of  Hughes  senti 
ment  among  the  delegates  less  rich  in  mean 
ing.  A  hand-picked  lot,  chosen  for  their 


"Anything  to  Beat  Wilson"    141 

subservience,  not  at  any  time  did  they  reg 
ister  a  single  emotion  or  preference  that 
was  not  prescribed. 

Deep  and  deeper  into  the  mire  of  disas 
ter  was  Mr.  Roosevelt  led.  By  encourag 
ing  him  to  believe  that  his  attacks  on  Mr. 
Wilson  were  making  him  the  "logical"  Re 
publican  candidate,  they  were  steadily 
forcing  him  into  a  position  where  it  would 
be  impossible  for  him  to  support  any  but 
a  Republican  candidate.  By  suggesting 
that  his  nomination  be  brought  about  with 
an  effect  of  stampede,  they  gained  the  four 
days  of  delay  during  which  the  humiliating 
conference  was  held,  and  a  platform  writ 
ten  that  made  a  complete  surrender  of 
the  principles  that  were  the  Progressive 
party's  sole  reason  for  existence. 

With  the  trap  all  set  at  last,  they  sprung 
it,  and  it  was  from  behind  bars  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  wrote  his  declination  and  issued 
the  call  that  sought  to  deliver  his  follow 
ers  to  Hughes  even  as  he  himself  had  been 
delivered. 

The    ambition    and    weakness    of    the 


142          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

leader  stand  exposed.  It  is  the  sincerity 
and  strength  of  the  rank  and  file  that  are 
now  up  for  test.  The  revolt  of  1912  was 
against  the  corrupt  and  sinister  control  that 
made  the  Republican  party  deaf  to  the  voice 
of  the  people,  responsive  only  to  the  com 
mands  of  the  privileged  and  predatory 
class.  It  was  a  revolt  that  took  form  in 
the  declaration  of  principles  to  which  every 
Progressive  made  oath  of  allegiance.  To 
day  the  selfsame  men — Crane,  Penrose, 
Hemenway,  Butler,  Watson,  Kealing, 
Smoot — are  in  absolute  control  of  the  Re 
publican  organization,  and  the  platform 
does  not  even  give  social  justice  the  cour 
tesy  of  mention.  Those  that  go  back  can 
do  so  only  at  the  price  of  honor,  faith, 
and  self-respect. 

With  plans  well  laid  for  the  annihilation 
of  Roosevelt  and  the  nomination  of 
Hughes,  the  secret  masters  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  issued  orders  that  even  the  pre 
tense  of  patriotism  should  be  set  aside  in 
the  interests  of  expediency.  Frankly,  even 
boldly,  an  alliance  was  arranged  between 


"Anything  to  Beat  Wilson"    143 

the  party  of  Lincoln  and  every  evil  force  of 
disaffection.  Almost  from  the  very  first 
professional  German-Americans  have  been 
in  open  conspiracy  against  President  Wil 
son  by  reason  of  his  steadfast  refusal  to 
sacrifice  the  law  of  nations  and  the  faith 
of  democracy  to  the  military  necessities  of 
the  Kaiser.  He  has  dared  to  maintain 
American  sovereignty  and  the  admitted 
rights  of  America  in  defiance  of  Germany's 
military  aims  and  objects.  He  has  failed 
to  acknowledge  the  suzerainty  of  Berlin, 
and  has  stood  firm  against  the  blackmail  at 
tempted  to  be  levied  through  the  threat  of 
the  ' ' German- American  vote." 

To  these  alien  conspirators,  then,  the 
hand  of  welcome  was  extended.  Compare 
the  silence  of  the  Eepublican  platform  with 
this  splendid  challenge  that  Woodrow  Wil 
son  wrote  personally  into  the  Democratic 
declaration : 

We  condemn  all  alliance  and  combinations  of 
individuals  in  this  country,  of  whatever  national 
ity  or  descent,  who  agree  and  conspire  together 
for  the  purpose  of  embarrassing  or  weakening 


144          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

our  Government  or  of  improperly  influencing  or 
coercing  our  public  representatives  in  dealing 
or  negotiating  with  any  foreign  power.  We 
charge  that  such  conspiracies  among  a  limited 
number  exist  and  have  been  instigated  for  the 
purpose  of  advancing  the  interests  of  foreign 
countries  to  the  prejudice  and  detriment  of  our 
country. 

We  condemn  any  political  party  which,  in  view 
of  the  activity  of  such  conspirators,  surrenders 
its  integrity  or  modifies  its  policy. 

While  the  alien  conspiracy  is  incidental, 
the  issue  itself  is  fundamental.  Just  as  an 
undivided  allegiance  is  the  beginning  of 
government,  so  is  divided  allegiance  the 
end  of  government.  Democratic  institu 
tions  exist  by  sufferance  when  the  balance 
of  political  power  is  in  the  hands  of  those 
whose  residence  is  American,  but  whose 
hearts  and  sympathies  are  foreign. 

Whatever  protestations  Mr.  Hughes  may 
make,  these  truths  pursue  and  destroy  him ; 
he  is  the  candidate  of  the  high  finance  that 
seeks  control  of  the  army  and  the  navy  in 
order  to  work  out  its  dream  of  empire ;  he 
is  the  candidate  of  the  great  usurers  who 


"Anything  to  Seat  Wilson"     145 

hate  the  Federal  Eeserve  Law  and  desire 
its  repeal ;  he  is  the  candidate  of  the  greedy 
forces  that  seek  the  abolition  of  the  sea 
men's  bill,  rural  credits  legislation,  and  the 
reenactment  of  the  old  Payne-Aldrich 
tariff  law;  he  is  the  candidate  of  the 
Kaiser ;  he  is  the  candidate  of  Toryism  and 
reaction.  It  is  millions  drawn  from  these 
sources  that  will  finance  his  campaign;  it 
is  the  votes  of  these  sinister  forces  that  he 
will  receive;  it  is  their  interests  that  will 
dominate  in  event  of  his  election. 

In  no  particular  is  there  reason  to  be 
lieve  that  his  choice  was  any  blind  selec 
tion.  His  speech  of  acceptance,  robbed  of 
its  sound  and  fury,  was  bitter  in  its  par- 
tizanship,  adroit  in  its  evasions,  and  ab 
solutely  barren  of  constructive  suggestions 
and  announced  policies.  One  searches 
vainly  through  its  platitudes  and  generali 
ties  for  a  single  specific  statement  with 
reference  to  the  fundamental  issues. 
Quarreling  broadly,  even  meanly,  with 
President  Wilson,  in  no  instance  does  he 
state  what  he  himself  would  have  done  or 


146          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

what  he  intends  to  do)  His  references  to 
Mexico  intimate  war  and  conquest;  his  at 
tack  upon  faithful  ambassadors  like  Mor- 
genthau,  Whitlock,  Page,  Van  Dyke,  and 
Sharp  indicates  dollar  diplomacy;  while 
loud  in  advocacy  of  "undiluted  American 
ism,  ' '  he-avoids  all  mention  of  the  German 
conspiracy,  and  his  insistence  that  present 
prosperity  is  only  temporary  insinuates  an 
attack  upon  the  Wilson  laws,  yet  never  does 
he  come  out  squarely  and  courageously. 
Such  adroitness,  such  egg-dancing,  carry 
ugly  implications,  and  these  are  strength 
ened  by  a  small,  yet  vastly  significant, 
thing.  In  telegraphing  Governor  Johnson, 
"I  desire  a  reunited  party/'  Mr.  Hughes 
betrays  utter  inability  to  grasp  Progres- 
sivism  as  a  spiritual  revolt,  viewing  it  only 
as  the  expression  of  a  peevish  factionalism. 
His  disingenuousness,  however,  only 
serves  to  accentuate  the  issue:  Must  a 
President  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to 
win  election,  take  his  foreign  policy  from 
Berlin  and  his  domestic  policy  from  Wall 
Street? 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  ANCIENT   FAITH 

AMEEICA  is  a  nation  of  incurable 
dreamers.  The  heart  of  the  people 
is  not  found  in  ledgers,  their  aspirations 
are  not  expressed  in  profits,  and  never  at 
any  time  have  schemes  of  purely  material 
advancement  possessed  the  largest  appeal. 
The  soul  of  the  many  is  found  in  the 
far-flung  idealism  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  not  in  the  cautious  phrases 
of  the  Constitution.  False  prophets  and 
strange  gods  have  won  no  more  than  lip- 
service,  for  deep  in  the  heart  of  the  nation 
an  abiding  faith  in  the  ultimate  triumph 
of  love,  justice,  and  brotherhood  remains 
untouched.  Financial  genius  may  be  given 
its  sorry  day  of  homage,  yet  its  right  to 
control  the  destinies  of  America  has  never 

147 


148          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

failed  to  be  resisted,  and  the  great  money 
makers  do  not  live  in  memory  beyond  the 
reading  of  their  wills. 

Vision,  spirit,  ideals,  without  the  clue 
afforded  by  these  dream  words,  the  United 
States  stammers  and  is  unintelligible. 
Democracy  never  has  been,  and  never  can 
be,  other  than  a  theory  of  spiritual  prog 
ress,  and  those  who  view  it  as  a  mere  pro 
gram  of  materialism  place  their  feet  in  a 
blind  path.  The  slightest  study  of  human 
progress  makes  plain  that  the  things  which 
count  in  the  evolution  of  civilization  to 
higher  levels  are  ever  and  always  those 
flames  of  the  spirit  that  blaze  without  re 
gard  to  intellectual  formulas  or  certain 
ties  of  profit. 

When  has  greed  ever  entertained  the 
visions  that  turned  arid  wastes  into  smil 
ing  orchards,  spun  steel  gossamer  across 
dizzy  chasms,  sent  air-ships  aloft,  or  has 
given  new  lands  to  the  foot  of  civilization? 
When  did  the  multiplication-table  mind 
ever  free  a  captive,  crush  an  evil,  liberate 
justice,  or  bless  the  world  with  a  larger  hap- 


The  Ancient  Faith  149 

piness  ?  All  that  is  fundamentally  big  and 
fine  has  been  the  work  of  so-called  "vision 
aries  ' '  who  ran  gantlets  of  ridicule  and  op 
position.  In  the  outset  every  great  move 
ment,  every  wonderful  idea,  is  a  dream, 
and  democracy  was  evolved  to  make  these 
dreams  come  true. 

It  may  not  be  denied  that  almost  froi 
the  first  these  truths  have  been  challenged 
with  persistency  and  skill.  A  base  and  de 
structive  sordidness,  masquerading  as  prac 
ticality,  has  been  offered  as  a  substitute  for 
the  sublime  abstractions  that  Jefferson 
molded  into  form,  and  derision  has  been 
trained  constantly  upon  everything  that 
could  not  be  handled  by  adding-machines. 
A  commercial  aristocracy,  by  sinister  con 
trol  of  government,  press,  and  pulpit,  has 
been  able  to  cast  the  surface  of  things  in 
shapes  of  its  own  desire,  and  it  is  only  in 
spasms  of  revolt  that  the  real  thought  and 
purpose  of  the  great  mass  of  people  have 
gained  expression. 

It  is  this  spirit  of  revolt  that  Woodrow 
Wilson  has  quickened  and  strengthened ; 


150          Wilson  and  the  Issues 


: 


;'t  is  this  spirit  of  revolt  that  the  profit- 
nongers  have  determined  to  crush  once  and 
rforever.  It  is  the  crime  of  the  President 
that  he  has  dared  to  stand  with  the  ex 
ploited  many  against  the  powerful  few, 
leading  the  fight  of  the  people  against  their 
ancient  enemies  for  the  recovery  of  the 
"ancient  faith.  They  hate  him  for  his  ac 
tivities,  but  most  of  all,  they  hate  him  for 
the  courage  of  his  thought.  He  has  not 
been  afraid  to  cry  out  against  the  sham 
' l  practicality "  that  was  slowly  destroy 
ing  the  creative  genius  of  the  American 
people.  He  has  battled  for  the  release  of 
the  national  mind  from  its  slavery  to  un 
relieved  materialism,  and  striven  to  restore 
idealism  to  its  proper  place  in  American 
life.  Victory  for  this  man  means  victory 
for  democracy ;  it  is  to  beat  democracy  back 
into  bondage  that  he  is  being  fought  by  the 
great  money  lords. 

Woodrow  Wilson  is  in  no  sense  a  her 
ald.  The  revolution  of  betrayed  idealism 
has  been  in  progress  for  more  than  a  cen 
tury,  and  in  the  last  decade  particularly 


The  Ancient  Faith  151 

there  has  been  steady  assault  upon  evil  and 
outworn  institutions.  These  passionate 
gropings  of  the  spirit  in  the  direction  of 
ideals  professed  and  not  practised  have 
merely  lacked  great  leadership  and  au 
thoritative  expression.  This  is  what 
Woodrow  Wilson  gives.  He  comes  as  a 
leader,  as  a  nucleating  force,  as  a  clear, 
rallying  cry  to  the  almost  mystic  passions 
that  are  peculiarly  the  dominant  note  of 
the  day.  He  fits  the  need  of  the  bloodless 
revolution  as  skin  fits  the  hand,  bringing 
purpose  and  courage  to  the  struggle  for 
nobler  fulfilment  of  the  hopes  and  aspira 
tions  that  thrilled  those  who  first  sought 
refuge  in  the  New  World  from  the  op 
pressions  of  the  Old — the  struggle  for  real 
democracy. 

"It  has  been  common,"  said  the  late 
Justice  Miller,  "to  designate  our  form  of 
government  as  a  democracy,  but  in  the 
true  sense  in  which  that  word  is  properly 
used  it  is  about  as  far  from  it  as  any  other 
of  which  we  are  aware. ' ' 

The  answer  to  the  dreams  of  freedom 


152          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

of  the  original  colonists  was  found  in  the 
London  Company,  three  times  chartered 
to  take  over  the  lands  and  resources  of 
Virginia,  in  the  Dutch  West  Indies  Com 
pany,  which  foisted  the  patroon  system  on 
the  New  Netherlands,  and  in  the  Ply 
mouth  Company  of  New  England,  all  breed 
ing  a  landholding  aristocracy  that  repeated 
and  exaggerated  the  feudalism  of  Europe. 

The  Declaration  of  Independence,  sub 
lime  preface  to  a  victorious  rebellion, 
brought  a  new  joy  and  certainty  to  the 
land;  and  yet  when  democracy  seemed  an 
assured  fact,  old  chains  were  riveted  anew. 
With  the  return  of  peace,  Tories  and  Loy 
alists  came  running  from  their  hiding- 
places,  and  aided  by  reaction,  the  wealthy 
classes  soon  regained  their  former  power. 

The  men  chosen  as  delegates  to  the  Con 
stitutional  Convention  were  drawn  entirely 
from  the  aristocratic,  landholding  class, 
and  though  scarcely  eleven  years  had 
passed  since  the  Declaration,  only  six  of 
the  fifty-six  men  who  signed  it  were  mem 
bers  of  the  Convention. 


The  Ancient  Faith  153 

James  Madison  felt  that  "the  minority 
of  the  opulent  must  be  protected  against 
the  majority.  The  Constitution  ought  to 
secure  the  permanent  interests  of  the  coun 
try  against  innovation. " 

Said  Gouverneur  Morris:  "The  first 
branch,  originating  from  the  people,  will 
ever  be  subject  to  precipitancy,  changeabil 
ity  and  excess.  This  can  only  be  changed 
by  ability  and  virtue  in  the  second  branch, 
which  ought  to  be  composed  of  men  of 
great  and  established  property — aristoc 
racy;  men  who,  from  pride,  will  support 
consistency  and  permanency,  and  to  make 
them  completely  independent,  they  must 
be  chosen  for  life,  or  they  will  be  a  use 
less  body." 

Property  qualifications  robbed  the  great 
majority  of  the  right  to  vote  and  to  hold 
office.  In  Massachusetts  no  man  could  be 
governor  unless  possessed  of  $5000 ;  North 
Carolina  required  $5000  in  freehold  real 
estate;  and  Georgia  went  further  with  a 
requisite  of  $20,000  and  five  hundred  acres. 

The  iron  test  of  the  democratic  spirit  of 


154          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

America  is  amazingly  exhibited  in  the  suc 
cessful  struggle  against  these  odds. 
Armed  only  with  the  dynamic  power  of  a 
belief,  the  people  marched  doggedly  to  their 
goal,  although  it  was  not  until  1846  that  the 
Constitutional  Convention  of  New  York 
crowned  full  manhood  suffrage  by  specific 
inhibition  of  feudal  tenures. 

The  abolition  of  chattel  slavery,  carry 
ing  with  it  a  final  perfection  of  union, 
again  gave  ground  for  the  old  pride  and 
certainty ;  but  out  of  the  vast  changes — the 
growth  of  cities,  the  sweep  of  railroads, 
the  dawn  of  industrialism — there  stole  an 
other,  and  in  many  respects,  a  greater 
menace.  Ideals  were  swallowed  up  in  a 
very  madness  of  money-making :  practical 
ity,  in  the  sense  of  profit  earning,  became 
a  fetish,  business  a  god;  quickly,  almost 
without  opposition,  the  control  of  govern 
ment  was  turned  over  to  the  financial  in 
terests  of  the  country. 

It  is  contended  that  the  Roosevelt  ad 
ministration  ushered  in  a  new  order,  and 
in  a  certain  sense  this  is  true.  He  denied 


The  Ancient  Faith 


155 


the  established  assumption  that  great  mag 
nates  could  do  no  wrong,  and  with  his  cry 
of  " personal  guilt"  aroused  the  conscience 
of  the  people  to  fever-heat.  There  is  no 
intent  to  take  away  from  the  value  of  his 
services,  and  yet  his  activities,  although 
honest,  were  essentially  oligarchic  and 
miles  removed  from  an  understanding  of 
democracy. 

Mr.  Eoosevelt  differed  from  his  prede 
cessors  only  in  that  he  demanded  punish 
ment  for  the  evil-doers  of  special  privilege. 
It  was  not  the  system  with  which  he  quar 
reled,  but  with  individual  malefactors. 
Under  analysis  he  is  seen  to  believe  in 
control,  not  freedom,  and  in  protection 
rather  than  in  the  abolition  of  the  evils 
that  necessitate  protection. 

His  intent  was  to  do  good  for  the  people, 
according  to  his  own  ideas  of  good,  rather 
than  to  let  people  do  good  for  themselves 
according  to  their  ideas.  It  cannot  be 
found  that  he  dissented  fundamentally 
from  the  bland  theory  that  all  intelligence 
is  vested  in  a  choice  few  or  that  prosper- 


156         Wilson  and  the  Issues 

ity  is  a  class  product,  and  from  the  first 
he  betrayed  a  feeling  that  the  radical  move 
ment  is  the  pet  property  of  high-minded 
lords  of  the  manor  with  leisure  on  their 
hands. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  every 
ground  for  the  assertion  that  Mr.  Boose- 
velt's  contributions  to  the  cause  of  democ 
racy  were  far  less  important  than  those  of 
Mr.  Taft.  Where  the  former  worked  in 
kaleidoscopic  colors,  the  latter 's  effects 
were  in  unrelieved  black  and  white.  Mr. 
Taft's  belief  in  the  necessity  and  virtue  of 
a  ruling  class  was  religious  in  its  fervor, 
and  in  no  wise  did  he  attempt  to  hide  it  or 
confuse  it.  As  a  consequence,  he  provoked 
conflicts,  challenged  comparisons,  gloried 
in  solemn  asseverations  of  his  faith,  all  to 
the  end  that  the  battle-lines  were  clearly 
drawn.  Mr.  Eoosevelt  colored  and  ob 
scured  the  aristocratic  features  of  Ameri 
can  life;  Mr.  Taft  isolated  them  so  per 
fectly  that  the  hour  of  revolt  was  hastened 
immeasurably.  Both  of  them,  in  their  dif- 


The  Ancient  Faith  157 

ferent  ways,  paved  the  way  for  Woodrow 
Wilson. 

Let  it  be  said  again  that  not  since  Lin 
coln,  not  since  Jefferson,  has  any  man  so 
felt  and  expressed  the  passionate  idealism 
that  is  the  soul  of  America.  To  a  revolt 
that  was  vague  and  sporadic  he  brought 
no  beggarly  contributions  of  expediency 
and  opportunism,  but  the  clear,  inspiring 
certainties  of  a  lifetime. 

As  far  back  as  1879  we  find  him  pro 
testing  in  signed  articles  against  secrecy  in 
connection  with  governmental  affairs,  cry 
ing  out  with  all  a  young  man's  fervor 
against  the  secret  committees  of  congress, 
which  invited  evil  and  corruption.  Dur 
ing  his  student  days  in  Princeton  he  is  seen 
relinquishing  a  desired  prize  well  within 
his  grasp  because  he  would  not,  even  in 
scholastic  debate,  advance  arguments  in 
support  of  what  he  deemed  an  oligarchic 
theory. 

Nor  can  too  much  be  made  of  his  fight 
for  the  democratization  of  the  university 


158          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

during  the  days  when  he  held  the  presi 
dency;  for  although  the  field  was  small, 
the  issues  involved  were  those  fundamen 
tals  that  bedrock  the  nation.  For  those 
who  may  have  been  led  into  the  belief  that 
the  Wilson  brand  of  democracy  is  a  recent 
product,  born  of  political  expediency,  a 
reading  is  recommended  to  those  speeches 
in  which  he  fought  the  tendency  to  glorify 
money,  scourged  the  drift  to  plutocracy, 
and  earned  the  hatred  of  a  class  that  at 
tacked  him  as  a  "socialist,"  a  l 'leveler," 
and  a  '  *  confiscator. ' ' 

In  his  books  and  speeches  liberty  and 
progress  are  favorite  words,  and  every  ut 
terance,  written  or  spoken,  breathes  a 
mighty  faith  in  the  oneness  of  the  Ameri 
can  people  when  an  end  is  put  to  the  falsi 
ties  and  inequalities  that  compel  oppres 
sion  and  breed  hate. 

It  is  indeed  unfortunate  that  the  poli 
tics  of  the  past  have  not  been  of  a  kind  to 
make  for  more  general  and  accurate  un 
derstanding  of  the  true  Wilson  personal 
ity.  Out  of  the  hackneyed  descriptive — 


The  Ancient  Faith  159 

''the  common  people" — there  has  grown  a 
tradition  that  commonness  is  the  one 
proper  method  of  popular  appeal.  It  is  an 
actual  habit  of  many  so-called  statesmen 
to  prepare  for  campaigns  as  though  they 
were  mummers  about  to  play  some  rustic 
part  calling  for  uncouth  dress  and  speech. 
This  species  of  vulgar  charlatanism  has 
confused  democracy  with  mere  physical 
boisterousness,  and  in  many  minds  there  is 
insistence  upon  hand-shaking,  shoulder- 
clapping,  and  ability  to  remember  first 
names  as  the  real  democratic  tests. 

Woodrow  Wilson  is  an  embodied  dis 
sent  to  this  wretched  superstition.  Even 
did  his  temperament  not  preclude  the 
tricks  and  obvious  insincerities  of  the  poli 
tician  type,  he  has  too  exalted  an  appre 
ciation  of  public  service  to  betray  it  by 
time-squandering  activities  designed  only 
to  advance  his  own  popularity.  Instead 
of  wasting  effort  on  the  accepted  formu 
las  of  campaign  democracy,  he  is  giving  his 
days,  his  thought,  and  his  strength  to  real 
democracy.  Few  Presidents  have  had 


160          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

such  full  comprehension  of  the  solemn  re 
sponsibilities  imposed  by  the  highest  office 
in  the  gift  of  the  people,  and  few  indeed 
have  made  such  complete  surrender  of  pri 
vate  life — its  habits  and  pleasures — to  the 
imperative  demands  of  public  duty. 

It  is  a  matter  of  frequent  comment  that 
he  has  few  friends.  What  is  this  but  rec 
ognition  of  the  bitter  truth  that  friendship 
is  the  great  American  conspiracy  in  re 
straint  of  public  duty  1  Who  can  have  for 
gotten  the  malignant  attacks  upon  Joseph 
W.  Folk  because  he  dared  to  prosecute  the 
criminals  who  had  aided  in  securing  his 
nomination?  Who  doubts  that  where  one 
strong  man  is  true  to  his  oath,  scores  have 
permitted  the  specious  obligations  of  care 
lessly  formed  friendships  to  tie  their  hands 
and  bridle  their  tongues?  Affection  is  a 
guide  that  has  led  many  honest,  sincere  men 
into  byways  of  broken  faith  and  virtual 
dishonor. 

There  is  no  warrant  in  fact  for  the  in 
sinuation  that  Woodrow  Wilson  is  i '  cold. ' ' 
His  student  days,  his  professorial  years, 


The  Ancient  Faith  161 

the  whole  record  of  his  life  up  to  his  en 
trance  into  political  life,  all  proclaim  a 
man  of  warm  feeling,  much  emotionalism, 
and  most  winning  geniality.  Nobody  ever 
sang  a  better  song,  told  a  better  story,  or 
placed  higher  value  upon  the  joys  of  social 
intercourse.  The  insistence  that  he  is  the 
last  word  in  well-ordered  intellect,  a  per 
sonality  as  cold  and  remote  as  though 
Kant's  "Critique  of  Pure  Beason"  were 
galvanized  into  action,  is  the  stupidity  of 
muddlers  who  have  lost  all  touch  with  the 
elemental  simplicities.  As  one  follows  the 
man  from  his  entrance  into  public  life,  the 
"thinking-machine"  theory  becomes  in 
creasingly  absurd,  for  at  every  point  there 
is  plain  indication  of  white-heat  passion, 
and  indubitable  evidence  of  an  instinctive 
devotion  to  democratic  ideals  far  more 
dominating  than  the  mere  convictions  that 
proceed  from  conscious  thought. 

It  is  not  only  to  conserve  his  time  and 
his  energies  that  he  has  walled  himself  in, 
but  more  particularly  to  guard  himself 
against  his  warmths  and  his  impulses. 


162          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

The  man  himself  is  not  changed;  it  is  his 
position  that  has  changed.  This  isolation, 
of  which  there  has  been  complaint,  is  the 
iron  determination  of  Woodrow  Wilson, 
not  his  temperamental  expression.  His 
loneliness  has  its  private  deprivations,  but 
these  are  balanced  by  public  compensations. 
In  his  administration  no  conditions  can 
arise  where  policies,  striking  against  in 
timacies,  will  be  turned  aside. 

Such  a  President  must  necessarily  be 
somewhat  contradictory  to  those  whose 
conception  of  democracy  has  been  gained 
from  professional  office-seekers,  and  such 
as  had  been  led  to  expect  a  "feet-on-the- 
desk"  administration  by  Woodrow  Wil 
son's  campaign  insistence  on  "open 
doors."  A  more  exact  comprehension  of 
the  man  himself  is  dawning,  however,  and 
out  of  final  appreciation  the  country  may 
gain  a  new  political  type  as  rich  in  dignity, 
self-respect,  and  loyalty  as  the  old  type  was 
fawning,  standardless,  and  time-wasting. 

A  new  day  has  dawned  in  American  life, 
and  anything  may  be  asked  of  its  noon. 


The  Ancient  Faith  163 

The  conception  of  government  as  a  sov 
ereign  power,  aloof,  remote,  magisterial, 
is  being  rapidly  replaced  by  a  demand  that 
government  shall  take  its  place  in  the  world 
of  work,  sustaining  and  supplementing  the 
generous  energies  that  are  putting  equal 
justice  into  law,  abolishing  slums,  substi 
tuting  opportunity  for  almsgiving,  water 
ing  deserts,  and  harnessing  streams,  safe 
guarding  the  weak,  devising  plans  for  a 
fairer  distribution  of  the  products  of  labor, 
and  taking  some  of  the  hate  and  cruelty  out 
of  life.  It  is  the  new  practicality. 

At  the  close  of  the  Taft  administration 
it  was  said  truly  that  America  witnessed  a 
race  between  reformation  and  revolution. 
Woodrow  Wilson  has  won  the  victory  for 
reformation,  and  stands  to-day  as  a  firmer 
champion  of  law  and  order  than  any  of 
those  who  oppose  and  attack  him  in  de 
fense  of  indefensible  privileges.  He  has 
made  it  possible  to  achieve  inevitable  re 
adjustments  in  true  sanity  and  safety,  for 
in  leading  people  back  to  ancient  ideals  he 
has  led  them  away  from  the  violences  that, 


164          Wilson  and  the  Issues 

bred  by  materialism,  would  have  been  em 
ployed  in  the  destruction  of  materialism. 

It  is  not  legitimate  business  that  he  has 
fought,  but  "loaded  dice"  business;  it  is 
not  enterprise  that  he  has  sought  to  curb, 
but  criminal  rapacity.  As  never  before  in 
the  history  of  the  United  States,  honest, 
law-abiding  industry  and  adventure  are 
aided,  advanced,  and  protected;  complaint 
can  come  in  fairness  only  from  the  forces 
of  lawless  greed. 

His  foreign  policies,  no  less  than  his 
domestic  policies,  are  the  decisions  of  one 
with  vision  to  see  beneath  the  stagnancies 
of  materialism  down  to  the  well-springs  of 
truth.  It  has  been  his  high  privilege  to 
prove  that  wholesale  blood-letting  is  not 
the  only  solution  of  international  disputes, 
or  the  single  effective  manner  of  consum 
mating  desires  deeply  rooted  in  justice. 
Purity  of  purpose  is  seen  to  possess  com 
pulsion  as  well  as  battalions,  and  frater 
nity  has  been  recognized  as  a  force  no  less 
than  siege-guns. 

The  fallacy  that  countries  and  flags  must 


The  Ancient  Faith  165 

compel  respect  is  displaced  by  the  better 
conception  that  respect  is  a  thing  to  be 
earned,  and  there  is  final  understanding 
that  hurt  to  a  nation's  honor  comes  always 
from  within,  never  from  without. 

The  inherited  and  cherished  fetish  that 
international  relations  are  inescapably  hos 
tile,  because  the  success  of  one  country 
inevitably  entails  the  injury  of  the  other, 
has  gone  the  way  of  witchcraft,  and  a  new 
national  pride  is  beginning  to  put  emphasis 
upon  leadership  in  justice  rather  than  in 
bullying  exhibitions  of  brute  strength. 

Across  the  sea  the  youth  and  flower  of 
great  races  are  being  rushed  to  death. 
Millions  of  precious  lives,  rich  in  possi 
bilities  of  creation  and  production,  are  be 
ing  blown  away  on  the  winds  of  a  vast 
destruction,  and  the  march  of  human  prog 
ress  ends  in  bloody  trenches.  In  the  red 
light  that  streams  from  this  death-grapple 
it  has  become  possible  for  the  people  of 
America  to  see  clearly  old  paths  and  new 
roads,  to  mark  the  abysses  that  have  been 
edged  and  the  heights  that  may  be  gained. 


166         Wilson  and  the  Issues 

The  policies  that  "shamed"  the  United 
States  are  increasingly  recognized  as 
fundamental  truths  to  which  there  will  be 
universal  repair  in  the  time  when  war- 
wrecked  nations  gather  to  remold  their 
shattered  destinies.  The  racial  mixture 
that  is  America  may  quiver  with  sympathy 
for  those  blood-brothers  who  go  to  death 
on  European  battle-fields,  yet  the  domi 
nant  thrill  is  one  of  national  pride  in  the 
demonstrated  supremacy  of  American  in 
stitutions  and  ideals.  Idealism,  so  derided 
in  the  beginning,  has  saved  the  national 
purse,  conserved  the  national  energies,  de 
stroyed  national  evils,  and  given  us  confi 
dence  in  ourselves,  besides  inspiring  and 
deserving  the  confidence  of  others.  A 
people  manumitted  and  facing  the  heights, 
a  nation  admired  of  the  world  and  re 
spected,  its  material  interests  bedrocked  in 
international  friendships — against  these 
tangible,  demonstrable  benefits,  how  unut 
terably  shabby  stand  the  returns  that  were 
promised  by  the  sordid,  destructive  pro 
gram  of  the  so-called  practicality  that  has 


The  Ancient  Faith  167 

been  imposing  its  vicious  doctrines  upon 
the  United  States  for  so  long  a  time ! 

Are  these  hard-won  heights  to  be  aban 
doned?  In  its  hour  of  greatest  hope,  is 
democracy  to  surrender?  Are  the  people 
of  the  United  States  so  lost  to  the  spirit  of 
Henry  and  Jefferson  and  Lincoln  that  they 
prefer  chains  to  freedom?  Is  it  possible 
to  build  a  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  and  for  the  people,  or  must  human 
ity,  by  reason  of  its  own  stupidities,  blind 
nesses,  incapacities,  and  cowardice  yield 
inevitably  to  the  rule  of  the  self-selected 
few? 

These,  after  all,  are  the  questions  to  be 
answered  in  November. 


THE   END 


P14  DAY  USE 
TURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 
LOAN  DEPT. 
RENEWALS  ONLY—TIL  w«  —*  "" 

1 


-- 


ifi 


o 
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m 


IT 

2 


JW     SMR 


OCT1Q1986 


LD21A-60m-3,'70 
(N5382slO)476-A-32 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


GENERAL  LIBRARY -U.C.  BERKELEY 


B0008BD7SM 


3      3 


